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VC firm Lightbox Steps Down from the Dunzo Board Amid Ongoing Financial Difficulties This represents the third-largest investor's exit from the company's board of directors, after Reliance Retail and Google, which exited the board of the quick commerce firm last year.

By Paromita Gupta

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[L-R] Kabeer Biswas, Ankur Agarwal, Dalvir Suri and Mukund Jha, Dunzo co-founders

Reliance Retail-backed quick commerce and on-demand delivery platform Dunzo has seen the exit of investor Lightbox from its board of directors. With a holding of 11.1% in the company, this represents the exit of Dunzo's third-largest shareholder.

Both Google, with a 19.3% investment in Dunzo, and Reliance Retail, which presently owns a 27.6% share, left their board positions in August 2023. Around the same time, Lightrock's Vaidehi Ravindran and Reliance Retail's Ashwin Khasgiwala and Rajendra Kamath resigned from their respective boards. Also, co-founders of Dunzo Dalvir Suri and Mukund Jha both left the company and the board.

Hong Jin Kim, the managing director of STIC Investments, and Kabir Biswas, the founder and CEO of Dunzo, are the only people now on the board, according to the sources.

Dunzo, one of the first businesses to adopt the quick commerce and hyperlocal delivery models, has been having trouble raising further capital. According to recent filings by the company with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, it has delayed payment of over Rs 40 crore to over 100 vendors, including related entities, citing insufficient funds.

Since its founding in 2014, the business has raised around USD 449 million in equity across many rounds. According to Tracxn, its valuation at the time of its most recent investment round in April 2023 was USD 744 million.

Dunzo has delayed employee wage payments and undertaken significant cost-cutting measures over the past year in an effort to manage its financial issues, in addition to delays in vendor payments.

Paromita Gupta

Entrepreneur Staff

Features Writer with Entrepreneur India

Covering news and trends in AI and Metaverse segments. An avid book reader running her personal blog on the side. You may reach me at paromita@entrepreneurindia.com. 
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