VOLY, promoted as Australia’s first on-demand supermarket delivering groceries in 15 minutes, has raised $18 million in seed funding. This is claimed to be one of the nation’s largest ever seed rounds.
Following its launch in July 2021, VOLY has been preparing to take on the food delivery market by delivering groceries to customers at “incredible speed”. It aims to make ordering groceries as “easy and engaging as browsing Instagram”.
VOLY co-founder and co-CEO Mark Heath says the company is here to completely change the way people shop for groceries by giving Australians back their most precious resource, time.
“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,” he says.
“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 latest funding – led by Sequoia Capital India with backing from Global Founders Capital and Artesian Capital – will enable VOLY to continue to scale, expand the team, rapidly increase operations across key urban centres and start a national rollout.
Sequoia Capital India Managing Director Abheek Anand says Australia’s grocery market, which sees $90 billion in annual spends, 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,” he says.
“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.”
VOLY retails “most key household products available at any major supermarket” seven days a week between 8am and 10pm. The service is currently available in Sydney across 42 suburbs.