As the latest startup to join the unicorn club, an Indian online grocery delivery service Grofers rolls out plans for 10-minute grocery delivery through its dark stores that only take online orders.

The unicorn is now throwing its weight behind the 10-minute delivery strategy, with a target on the platform's top 12 markets. This comes no sooner than Swiggy gets popular with its 15-30 minute Instamart delivery service which has been on the market for quite some time now.

In the 38 cities where Grofers presently operates, the company hopes to make all customer deliveries in under 10 minutes.

Grofers is doing this by partnering with local merchants and assisting them in setting up dark storefronts that will only accept online deliveries.

Lately it's heard that stores being onboarded this year are e-commerce first and solely focused on online delivery, essentially following the dark store concept. Grofers is said to pump finance into some of these establishments as merchants are investing their own money into them.

Grofers is now focusing on the top 12 cities to implement this model, with ambitions to expand to the next 25 cities over time. The main objective is for all Grofers orders to be delivered in under 10 minutes.

This road to speedy deliveries began last year, when it began delivering groceries to consumers in 35-40 minutes, which is the company's exclusive emphasis right now. It intends to roll out the 10-minute grocery model to all of its cities in the future.

The stores being onboarded this year are e-commerce first and solely focused on online delivery, essentially following the dark store paradigm. Merchants are believed to be investing their own money to open these shops.

Grofers, supported by SoftBank, is the 25th Indian startup to become a unicorn or reach a valuation of more than $1 billion this year, highlighting a boom in international interest in Indian startups.

As it is able to obtain financing privately, the company has put plans for a public listing this year on hold. Although plans changed due to investor interest in the company and the grocery industry in general. Overall, Grofers is regarded to be the only major e-grocer capable of attracting private equity funding to this date. Its plans to go public have been put on hold for the time being.

Other companies have also joined the game where BigBasket and Zomato seem to be the most prominent ones in the front after Swiggy.