Participated · Series C · Sep 2021

Founded in 2013, Chaldal was an early adopter of the dark store model, picking orders from its own warehouses rather than retail shops. The company operates 27 warehouses across four cities (Dhaka, Naryanganj, Chattogram and Jashore) and claims to be the country’s largest grocery e-commerce platform and the second-largest grocery player overall. Over the past 12 months it generated $40 million in revenue, completed 2.5 million orders, and grew about 120% year over year. Chaldal sells roughly 8,500 SKUs today and plans to expand assortment to 30,000 SKUs by December. It intends to use recent funding to expand into 15 new cities and reach 50 warehouses by year-end, while growing GoGo Bangla (on-demand logistics), the Chaldal Vegetable Network connecting farmers to retailers, and launching a direct-to-consumer pharmacy. The company says its core grocery operations have been profitable and that it primarily invests cash into technology and new verticals. Operational efficiencies include batching deliveries from a full-time rider fleet (and a new part-time driver program) enabling 15–30 minute deliveries, and sourcing produce directly from farms and major manufacturers. Chaldal.com operates an online grocery shopping and delivery platform serving customers in Bangladesh. The company scaled operations during the COVID-19 period and has positioned itself as a leading e-commerce player in its home market. The platform focuses on enabling customers to buy fresh food items and household goods via online orders and delivery. Recent investor activity underscores continued external interest in Chaldal’s growth trajectory. Razor Capital increased its stake through a secondary share purchase, signaling confidence in the company’s expansion potential. Founders Waseem Alim, Tejas Viswanath, and Zia Ashraf were noted and congratulated in investor communications. Chaldal operates an end-to-end grocery delivery platform that combines route and delivery logistics with fulfillment. It fulfills about 1,500 orders every day through a network of "micro-warehouses" and AI-driven software that sets up supply chains on the fly. Customers order via a mobile app or web portal and receive groceries including fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy, often within an hour. The company also transports goods via its ridesharing spinoff Chalo and its logistics arm Gogo Bangla. With new capital Chaldal plans to build "nano-warehouses" — single-room fulfillment centers using robotic arms — and aims to deploy roughly 50 sites to enable ~15-minute fulfillment. Across its subsidiaries Chaldal employs 450 people in the U.S., Singapore, and Bangladesh, and to date has raised $10 million. ChalDal is an online grocery site founded last year by Waseem Alim, Tejas Viswanath, and Zia Ashraf and is headquartered in Dhaka. The company operates an e-commerce platform for groceries focused on providing convenient ways to shop and transact for Bangladeshi consumers. ChalDal plans to expand beyond the capital city and to invest in building a stronger back-end infrastructure. Founder Waseem Alim, who previously worked at SigFig, has argued that Bangladesh’s roughly 160 million population and dense markets offer attractive unit economics. The company views improving internet and mobile penetration — roughly 35 million internet users and about 114 million mobile subscribers — as tailwinds for growth. 500 Startups has provided seed capital to support the company’s expansion.