Soft Bank-backed online grocery firm Grofers has invested ₹100 crore to ramp up its operation and has hired around 4000 people to support its ongoing nine-day biannual grocery sales bonanza, said a top company official.

The company has set an ambitious target of achieving ₹500 crore of gross merchandise value (GMV) and acquiring around 10 lakh new customers through its third edition of Grand Orange Bag Days (GOBD) online event that kicked off on 18 January. The sale will continue till 26 January.

"We are investing close to ₹100 crore into this event.. The expectation is that we will do GMV sales north of ₹500 crore. When we started, our target is around ₹450 crore. We received much better response than we had anticipated, " Albinder Dhindsa, co-founder, Grofers told MINT over the phone.

Grofer's hefty investment for the event comes at a time when India's online grocery market is seeing intense competition. In December last year, billionaire Mukesh Ambani soft launched his “new commerce" venture that would largely sell grocery items. Global e-commerce giant Amazon, which recently announced an investment of $1 billion in India, has tied up with Future Retail with a focus on selling groceries, among others.