Dark stores – more widely known as microdistribution hubs – have been gaining prominence in India and Southeast Asia, with grocery delivery startups like Dropezy and Zepto raising millions of dollars in funding and setting up hundreds of centers across the region.

The future of this segment is brighter than its name suggests. By 2025, India’s consumables market is projected to hit roughly US$1 trillion while Southeast Asia’s online grocery market is expected to reach US$11.9 billion – a prime opportunity for operators of dark stores.

In this episode of Deep Dive, Tech in Asia’s Nikita Puri discusses the ins and outs of this rising phenomenon, the key players leading the segment, and how dark stores can change the way we buy groceries - or anything else we might need.

More information on today's episode here: https://www.techinasia.com/deep-dive-bright-future-dark-stores

Featured reporter:

• Nikita Puri, a Tech in Asia journalist based in India

Essential reading:

• Dark stores light up red-hot grocery delivery market
• Stanford dropouts’ firm bags $60m to speed up grocery delivery in India
• Indonesian e-grocery startup raises $2.5m to deliver orders in 20 minutes

Episode sponsor:

HVR 6.0 allows organizations to incorporate real-time movement into new and existing data management strategies, load massive tables much faster to speed up the adoption of new analytics systems, configure network encryption to make it secure by default, and dramatically simplify the deployment of initial data replication.

Sign up now to take a test drive of HVR 6.0: https://techin.asia/hvr6