Dunzo started as a WhatsApp group.
That sentence appears in almost every account of Kabeer Biswas and his company. What appears less often is what he did before it. He is a computer science engineer who then took an MBA, and worked in sales at Airtel. He left, took a break, and started Hoppr with Mohammed Imthiaz, his former boss. Hike Messenger acquired Hoppr in 2014. So by the time he began Dunzo that same year, he had already built and sold one company.
That sentence appears in almost every account of Kabeer Biswas and his company.
A profile on StartupTalky adds something more personal: that his father died when Biswas was 19. No second source confirms it, and this piece treats it as unverified. It does not claim to know what the loss did to him.
What can be said is that Dunzo grew from a very small place. Friends in Bengaluru would post a task in a group and someone would run it. Blume and others put $650,000 in during March 2016. In December 2017 Google invested $12 million, which Wikipedia calls its first direct investment in an Indian startup.
Then the money got bigger and the problems with it. A data breach in 2019 exposed about 3.5 million users. A Google Play rule on tobacco and liquor in 2021 forced a stripped-down version, Dunzo Mo. In January 2022 Reliance Retail led a $240 million round, putting in $200 million for 25.8 percent.
It was the high point. FY23 revenue was Rs 227 crore against a net loss of Rs 1,802 crore, and bigger quick-commerce rivals were faster and richer. Layoffs followed in 2023 and 2024, then delayed salaries. Reliance reportedly wrote off its stake. In January 2025 the app and website went offline, and Biswas moved to Flipkart's quick-commerce unit.
The cost is easy to see from outside: a company that began as friends running errands for each other ended owing months of pay to its employees.
For a founder, the lesson is plain. Dunzo's first idea was good and cheap. Its collapse came after it became expensive. A business can prove demand and still lose to whoever pays the least for each delivery.