Daricus Releford always wanted to be a founder.
In high school, he ran a hot dog station and in college launched a chocolate-covered strawberry business, making millions in sales before moving to Silicon Valley to pursue his dreams in tech. Entrepreneurship simply runs in his family, he told TechCrunch. “My grandfather was one of the first Black hotel owners in the U.S., and my mom always started businesses. I think it’s just in my blood,” he continued.
It’s no wonder then, that no matter what tech job he took he always found himself going back to launching something new. In 2020, he founded StoreCash, a mobile payment solution that lets users pay for items and earn maximum cash-back rewards. He said he launched the company because he wanted to help people save more money.
Releford said StoreCash is different from its competitors because it transfers cash back to consumers immediately, in comparison to others which offer lower returns that also take longer to get to customers.
“Knowing about 56% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings, I wanted to help the average American build generational wealth,” he said. “Now, StoreCash users earn around $900 annually just by using the app.”
The app is quite simple: StoreCash integrates its API into fintech partners and alerts users when stores like H&M Gap or AMC Theatres offer cash back. When in person, customers scan a QR code generated by the app that applies the cashback savings to their purchase. Online, a consumer simply opens the StoreCash app and selects the store they want to shop at, manually typing in the serial number and barcode to complete the transaction.
Cashback is mainly earned through affiliate marketing, as seen with Rakuten (formerly known as Ebates), or credit and debit card rewards, which are known to have hidden fees.
The company has attracted some top investors and today announces the closing of a $3.7 million seed round led by BlackOps Ventures, with participation from returning investors MaC Venture Capital, 43North, and Alumni Ventures. The company has raised $6.4 million to date.
“The fintech space is ripe for a major player to take over with a solid personal finance tool for consumers,” Marlon Nichols, a co-founder of MaC Venture Capital, told TechCrunch. “Daricus and the team have big plans to add budgeting features to make a real impact in helping people better track and organize their finances.”
But fundraising was no simple feat for Releford. He used the word “unconscious bias,” when asked how he would describe his fundraising process. “The process was brutal, taking about a year filled with ‘no’s’ before things started to align.” He was introduced to Nichols through Ethan Austin, a director in the TechStars program in which Releford participated. He met James Norman from BlackOps after winning a pitch competition where Norman was a judge.
“Winning the 43North pitch competition was a turning point, bringing more pending investors on board.”
The fresh capital will go toward expanding product development and the team.
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Zepto has secured $350 million in new funding, its third round of financing in six months, as the Indian quick-commerce startup strengthens its position against its competitors ahead of a planned IPO next year.
Indian family offices, wealthy individuals, and asset manager Motilal Oswal invested in the round, which maintains Zepto’s $5 billion valuation. Motilal co-founder Raamdeo Agrawal, family offices of Mankind Pharma, RP-Sanjiv Goenka, Cello, Haldiram’s, Sekhsaria, and Kalyan, as well as celebrities Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar are among the backers in the new investment, which is the largest fully domestic primary round in India.
The funding push comes as Zepto rushes to add Indian investors to its cap table, with foreign ownership currently exceeding two-thirds. TechCrunch first reported about the new round’s deliberation last month. The Mumbai-headquartered startup has now raised over $1.35 billion since June.
Quick-commerce sales — delivering grocery and other items to customers’ doorsteps in 10 minutes — in India are set to surpass $6 billion this year. Morgan Stanley projects the market to be worth $42 billion by 2030, representing 18.4% of total e-commerce and 2.5% of retail sales. These strong growth prospects have forced established players, including Flipkart, Myntra, and Nykaa, to cut delivery times as they lose business to specialized delivery apps.
Even though quick commerce hasn’t made inroads in most pockets of the world, the model seems to be working especially well in India, where unorganized retail stores are ever present.
Quick-commerce platforms are creating a “parallel commerce for convenience-seeking customers” in India, Morgan Stanley wrote in a note this month.
Zepto and its rivals — Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy-owned Instamart, and Tata-owned BigBasket — currently operate at lower margins than traditional retail, and Morgan Stanley expects market leaders to reach contribution margins of 7% to 8% and adjusted EBITDA margins of more than 5% by 2030. (Zepto is currently spending about $35 million a month, according to many people familiar with the figure.)
Zepto, which serves a total of more than 7 million orders in over 17 cities daily, is on track to record annualized sales of $2 billion, according to an investor presentation reviewed by TechCrunch. It projects 150% growth over the next 12 months, CEO Aadit Palicha told investors in August. The startup plans to go public in India next year.
However, the fast growth of quick-commerce has had a devastating effect on mom-and-pop shops that dot thousands of Indian cities, towns, and villages.
Around 200,000 neighborhood stores have closed in the past year, with 90,000 stores shutting down in major cities where quick commerce is more prevalent, according to the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation.
The federation warns that without regulatory intervention, more neighborhood stores face closure as quick-commerce platforms prioritize growth over sustainable practices.
Zepto said it has created work opportunity for hundreds of thousands of gig workers. “From day one, our vision has been to play a small role in nation-building, create lakhs of jobs, and offer better services to Indian consumers,” said Palicha in a statement.
Regulatory challenges are looming. Unless an e-commerce firm is majority-owned by an Indian company or person, current rules prevent it from operating on an inventory model. Quick-commerce firms are currently not compliant with these rules.
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