Krave Mart, the Karachi grocery delivery startup that outlasted Airlift, was acquired by inDrive

Krave Mart is a Karachi grocery delivery company that fills orders from its own small warehouses, known as dark stores, in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. In March 2026 TechCrunch reported that inDrive, the ride hailing company, had acquired it in an all stock deal. The newsletter of i2i Ventures said the deal validates an exit pathway for venture backed startups in Pakistan.

The better way into the story starts more than three years earlier. In late 2022 Airlift, the quick commerce company many had expected to become Pakistan's first unicorn, shut down after burning through $85 million in 11 months, according to Rest of World. A smaller rival had a different message for the same publication. Kassim Shroff, Krave Mart's chief executive, said more than 60 percent of the roughly $6 million it had raised was still in the bank.

Four founders from Daraz, Foodpanda and Swvl

Krave Mart was founded in 2021 by four people: Shroff, Hammad Bawany, Ahsan Kidwai and Haziq Ahmed. Its Y Combinator profile says Shroff had more than a decade in ecommerce at Daraz, the Alibaba owned marketplace, and had earlier sold a company called Gobabu.com to Canada's Buytopia.ca. Rest of World describes him as Daraz's former chief people officer, who watched the marketplace's order volume grow from 10,000 to 4 million over four years. The same profile lists Bawany as a veteran of Daraz and Foodpanda who was head of product and operations at the online grocer HumMart, and Kidwai as an alumnus of Alibaba, Swvl, Unilever and GlaxoSmithKline.

The first money was large for the time. In December 2021, Bloomberg reported, and Aaj News relayed, that Krave Mart had raised $6 million in pre seed funding, described as the biggest early stage round in Pakistan. MSA Capital, ru Net, Global Founders Capital and Zayn Capital were named as leads, with Saison Capital, 2AM, Mehta Ventures, Jedar Capital and Lakson Investments also taking part. The plan then was to reach 10 more Pakistani cities by the end of the first quarter of 2022 and to look at Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. Shroff said Pakistan was roughly where India had been a decade earlier and would need only two to three years to catch up.

It did not catch up on that schedule. The company joined Y Combinator's Summer 2022 batch, but by then the funding climate that had paid for fast, cheap delivery was closing.

Unit economics before speed

Shroff laid out the new rules in a December 2022 interview with Rest of World. Krave Mart had 22 dark stores, ten of them profitable. It had stretched promised delivery from 10 to 15 minutes to 30 to 40, because the faster promise cost too much. It was moving about $1 million of goods a month at what he put at a 26 percent margin. The minimum basket was Rs1,200, about $5.34, and roughly three in four customers paid a Rs99 delivery fee.

The basket mattered more than the speed. After widening its range from about 1,400 to 2,500 products, Krave Mart said the average order grew from three items to 11. Vouchers excluded low margin staples such as oil, tea and sugar, so that discount hunters could not empty the shelves of the goods that earn the least. Then came private label. Shroff said a Krave branded sugar could earn a 25 percent margin against 15 percent for a branded equivalent, and private label was then only 5 percent of orders.

By November 2023 the company said that figure had reached close to 30 percent of total orders. That month ProPakistani reported a second round of about $6 million, taking total funding to $12 million. Y Combinator, the footballer Keisuke Honda, JAM Fund, Rebel Funds and Decart Ventures came in, while Zayn VC and ru Net raised their stakes. The company claimed 20 dark stores and three larger mothership warehouses, 90 percent of stores operating in the green, gross margins of 30 percent or more and EBITDA profitability within eight to ten months. Those are the company's own, unaudited claims.

“From Day 1, it was important for us to start a business that makes money”

Why a ride hailing company bought a grocer

inDrive, which TechCrunch says operates in more than 1,000 cities across 48 markets, wants to be a super app, a single phone icon for rides, errands and groceries. TechCrunch reported that its venture arm, launched in November 2023, planned to invest up to $100 million over the next few years. It invested in Krave Mart in December 2024. Profit by Pakistan Today, citing two sources, put the amount at $10 million in March 2025, and reported that Krave Mart had grown threefold since the investment and had improved delivery times that suffered during the investment crunch.

On 12 January 2026 inDrive launched inDrive.Groceries by Krave Mart in Karachi. Customers could order more than 7,500 items inside the ride app, filled from Krave Mart's dark stores, with most orders arriving within 30 minutes and free delivery above Rs499, according to inDrive's own announcement. The company noted that most daily shopping in Pakistan still happens at neighbourhood kiryana shops. Shroff said in the same statement that Krave Mart's "strong operational backbone and dark store infrastructure enable quick deliveries and consistent quality."

Two months later came the disclosure. TechCrunch said the all stock deal was agreed in 2025 and approved by the Competition Commission of Pakistan, and that inDrive confirmed the acquisition but declined to give financial terms. Profit estimated the value at about $45 million, a figure it did not attribute and that neither inDrive nor TechCrunch has confirmed. Andries Smit, inDrive's chief growth businesses officer, said the companies had since launched in Lahore under the inDrive.Groceries name. The Krave Mart and inDrive brands will both keep operating in Karachi.

What a quiet exit does not settle

On the reported figures, Krave Mart raised about $12 million from investors by 2023 and a further $10 million from inDrive. Airlift burned $85 million in 11 months. If Profit's estimate is right, the price is modest beside the capital its failed rival consumed. The founders shrank the promise, watched each store's margin and let private label carry the profit, and they ended up with a strategic buyer.

The hard questions are about what comes next. The industry source quoted by TechCrunch said Foodpanda, which is backed by Delivery Hero, dominates the market and that quick commerce takes significant time and capital to become profitable. Profit's own analysis noted that Careem, Bykea and Jazz have all struggled to build super apps in Pakistan, and argued that transaction values are low, shoppers are price sensitive and mobility is concentrated in three or four cities. Krave Mart has not published its revenue, order counts or current profit since the sale, and the stock terms are unknown.

For inDrive the test is whether a ride hailing audience will buy groceries often enough to justify the dark stores. Its launch announcement said grocery delivery would expand to other cities without naming them, and Krave Mart's own website lists Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore as live.

Reported from TechCrunch, Profit by Pakistan Today, Rest of World, ProPakistani, Aaj News, the i2i Ventures newsletter, Y Combinator's company profile and inDrive's launch statement.