Australia’s first instant online grocery supermarket Voly, has raised $18 million in seed funding – a new record for a food delivery company in Australia.
Voly aims to take on the $122 billion local grocery industry by offering an engaging and easy platform to purchase groceries online, with a promise of free delivery in just 15 minutes.
Mark Heath, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Voly, said the company is here to completely change the way people shop for groceries.
“Our model, from a fully employed delivery and dispatch team to the way we use electric bikes to deliver, is designed around the way people live. We firmly believe that our customers have a better experience when our riders and other staff are part of the company, working with us.”
The funding, led by Sequoia Capital India with backing from Global Founders Capital (GFC) and Australian-based Artesian Capital, will allow Voly to continue to scale, expand the team, rapidly increase operations across key urban areas, and start the national rollout.
Launched in July 2021 by Heath and Thibault Henry, Voly employs its own riders and delivery centre and store staff, eliminating the need for customers to spend time in physical retail outlets.
Henry, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, said they’re helping customers do away with the weekly shop by providing convenience and reliability in a market that offers some of the slowest delivery times in the world.
“By owning our own supply chain, Voly delivers at blazing fast speed without compromising on price, quality or availability. We source directly from suppliers, store in our own micro-fulfilment centres and deliver using fully employed and mostly full-time staff. Voly is the supermarket of the future that is built around our customers, not the other way around.”
Abheek Anand, Managing Director of Sequoia India, said Australia’s grocery market is a large and profitable space that continues to be dominated by offline retail.
“The Sequoia Capital India team was impressed by the strong consumer love for Voly, their compelling value proposition, and an impressive team of repeat founders that has blitzscaled businesses in Australia before. With on-demand models traditionally scaling very successfully in the country, the decision to lead their seed round and help them scale their business across Australia was an easy one to make.”