PepperTap, the Gurgaon-based hyperlocal grocery service, has raised $36 million in Series B funding led by Snapdeal and existing investors Sequoia India and SAIF Partners, with participation from new investors Ru-net, JAFCO, and BeeNext. According to the press statement, the company is in advanced talks to raise another $20 million from other investors, expected to close in the next few weeks. Today’s funding take’s the company’s total funding to $47.2 million. The funding will help PepperTap make use of Snapdeal’s experience to develop its stores’ capabilities and grow sales. It will also be used for geographical expansion to 75 cities by the end of the current fiscal year, invest in technology and supply chain, as well in hiring (over 5,000 by year end overall). PepperTap claims that its GMV run rate of $1 million at the start of fiscal 2015-16, is set to hit over $250 million at the end of the fiscal. Note that last month, Snapdeal itself raised $500 million in funding from Foxconn, Alibaba and existing investor Softbank, with participation from other existing investors Temasek, BlackRock, Myriad and PremjiInvest. In April this year, the grocery startup raised Series A funding worth $10 million from SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital. At that time, the company said that it would use the funds for expansion to more cities including Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai and Hyderabad by the end of this year. In February, it raised seed funding worth $1.2 million from Sequoia Capital, for expansion across Delhi NCR, scale up…
