Aussie startup VOLY raises AU$18m to scale ‘supermarket of the future’

Australian instant online grocery supermarket, VOLY, has raised AU$18 million in a seed round led by Sequoia Capital India, and with increased backing from Global Founders Capital (GFC) and Artesian Capital.

The venture, which launched in July, says the cash will enable it to continue to scale, expand its team, rapidly increase operations across key urban centres and start a national roll-out.

Mark Heath, Co-CEO and Co-founder of VOLY, says: “VOLY 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. We firmly believe that our customers have a better experience when our riders and other staff are part of the company, working with us.”

VOLY retails most key household products found at any major supermarket and these are available online seven days a week from 8am-10pm.

“We’re doing away with the need to do a weekly grocery shop by providing convenience alongside reliability in a market that offers some of the slowest delivery times in the world,” says Thibault Henry, Co-CEO and Co-Founder.

“By owning our own supply chain, we deliver at blazing fast speed without compromising on price, quality or availability.”

“We source directly from suppliers, store in our own micro-fulfilment centres and deliver using fully employed and mostly full-time staff. VOLY is the supermarket of the future that is built around our customers, not the other way around.”

"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,” says Abheek Anand, Managing Director, Sequoia India.

“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.”

“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.”

Heath helped launch Uber in Australia after working at Goldman Sachs and Henry built, scaled and sold Balto, a B2B last mile business with clients such as HelloFresh, Marley Spoon and YouFoodz.

Currently available in Sydney across 42 suburbs, VOLY has plans to rapidly expand its offering from January to reach millions more Australians around the country in the year ahead.

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