Bengaluru-headquartered Ola, known for its cab-hailing services, has launched grocery delivery service through a combination of hyperlocal pickup-and-drop model and dark stores. A dark store is a store operated by an e-commerce company to fulfill online orders. This is the IPO-bound company’s second attempt at the highly competitive quick commerce business, which is currently dominated by the likes of tech startups such as Dunzo and Swiggy and has witnessed new entrants such as traditional supermarket chain —Big Bazaar.

The quick commerce market, where delivery takes less than an hour, is currently pegged at $0.3 billion and is estimated to reach $5 billion in four years, showed data from market research company Redseer. While Ola and its rival Uber unsuccessfully tried to launch similar services five to six years ago, sources close to the development said, Ola’s fresh look at the business will not be limited to groceries alone.

“Home care, personal care, pet care, veggies and milk are some of the categories that will be included in the services,” said a source. Ola’s move comes at a time when the domestic cabhailing market is struggling to recover from the shockwaves of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the online grocery space, too, large companies such as Flipkart, Reliance and Amazon have upped the ante, while Tata-owned Big Basket has recently opened its first physical store in Bengaluru. Softbank-backed Ola, in the meanwhile, has diversified into new areas such as manufacturing electric scooters and selling pre-owned cars, a segment that boasts of other new-age players including Cars24 and Droom. Ola’s revenue plunged 65% to Rs 690 crore in FY21.

In September, Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal had said the company’s GMV (gross merchandise value) had crossed pre-COVID levels…