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Bengaluru-based unicorn Ola has announced its venture into hyperlocal delivery with Ola Store. Currently available on the app, Ola Store promises a 10-minute delivery. The company has also opened dark stores and is following a pick-up-and-drop model to fulfill the orders.

The startup currently is testing waters and is seeing how the deliveries will now pan out. This is Ola’s second foray into the grocery delivery segment. The segment currently is growing significantly and has players like Dunzo, Swiggy, and Zepto in the space that found a strong niche in the segment.

According to the sources within the company, Ola will be venturing into a complete segment of fresh, home care, personal care, pet care, and the whole nine yards.

The hyperlocal delivery segment is pegged to be $3.04 billion according to RedSeer. Zepto has raised an early-stage funding round worth $60 million, at a valuation of $225 million, to expand its 10-minute grocery delivery nationwide.

Dunzo Daily — already growing at 25 percent week-on-week — is focussed on the user’s buying patterns, and it stocks only those items that are frequently purchased by the users in geography.

Riding on the back of the organic demand, the Bengaluru-based hyperlocal giant scaled its GMV, which includes the value of products sold on the platform and user delivery fees, by approximately 65 percent in FY21, with more than 90 percent of users signing up on the platform organically in the last year. 

It will be interesting to see how Ola would crack into this segment.