Doodhwala was an Indian startup which had a huge potential to grow in the market and play monopoly. It gave a modern touch to one of our traditional milk delivery methods. It was founded in the year 2015 by Aakash Agarwal and Akbari, headquartered in Bengaluru.

Doodhwala was subscription-based hyperlocal delivery startup that offered users a wide selection of grocery items, including fresh dairy milk, meat, vegetables and fruits. Where it primarily focused on milk since the product was daily need of each house hold.

With online grocery delivery, Doodhwala was expected to grow at 55% in the year 2021 since the future is online, where Doodhwala was a step ahead by providing subscription based services. Kicking off its journey in the year 2015, it became India’s largest last mile milk e-tailer registering 1.3 million to 15 million transactions a month. Early morning delivery of milk and groceries brings an impression of ‘fresh food’ for consumers. That’s where Doodhwala added value and became a must have app for perishable purchases. Then company had its presence in Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad.

Doodhwala had a huge success, it led the online platform for milk delivery and made revolution. It entered the next phase of rapid growth. A team of 5 members became 400. In Bangalore city alone they used to deliver more tan 30,000 liters.

While everything was going in a track, Doodhwala shuts its operations in the month of Sept-Oct 2019 since it was unable to sustain. It is reportedly said that company owed crores to its employees and vendors after another startup FreshToHome took over its operations.

A vendor said Doodhwala allegedly owes ₹6-7 crore to around 30-35 vendors. According to them, Agarwal and Akbari are absconding as their phones were continuously switched off. The FIR was filed at the police station in Bengaluru.

Company raised a total of $2.4 million in funding in 2 rounds. Their last funding round was held on February 23, 2018. It was funded by Tom Varkey – $150,000 and Omnivore – $2.2 million.

There are several reasons for Doodhwala failure. We found few of them.

1. Company was operating in low margin
2. To capture the market, they burned out huge cash
3. The acquisition cost of a customer was more
4. Offers and discounts in various ways
5. No fresh round of fund raise from the investors. Otherwise company could have been operating
6. Tough competition by their rivals. Ex bigbasket and Grofers