30-min fashion delivery startup Blip shuts down; founder says, "I am extremely proud of..."

Blip, the fast-fashion startup that sought to redefine online apparel delivery with 30-minute fulfillment windows, has closed operations just nine months after launching. The closure, announced by co-founder Ansh Agarwal in a LinkedIn post, marks an early setback for the nascent vertical of fashion-focused quick commerce in India.

Founded in 2024 by Agarwal and Sarvesh Kedia, a former Whatfix executive, Blip launched with the ambition of becoming a “Zepto for fashion.” The app went live in October 2024, offering 25,000 SKUs from over 10 brands to customers in select parts of Bengaluru. Its promise: branded apparel delivered within 30 minutes.

But despite its early mover advantage, the startup struggled to scale beyond its pilot city. “Bootstrapping the business with limited capital made it extremely difficult for us to participate in the market,” Agarwal wrote, adding that the inability to implement a go-to-market strategy efficiently contributed to the decision to shut down. “It didn’t make sense for us to continue.”

Blip operated without holding its own inventory, instead relying on a network of retail partners and micro-warehousing. Its omnichannel model aimed to leverage existing brick-and-mortar stores for inventory and fulfillment — a strategy Agarwal had touted as key to rapid expansion. But this approach required significant buy-in from retailers, and convincing stakeholders to adopt first-of-its-kind integrations proved slower than expected.

Blip’s failure underscores the difficulty of executing high-speed delivery operations in capital-intensive categories like fashion, especially without strong investor backing. While grocery and essentials-based quick commerce platforms such as Zepto have flourished with deep-pocketed support, building similar logistics infrastructure for a less perishable, more size-sensitive category proved more complicated.

Still, Agarwal remains optimistic about the broader model. “I continue to believe in this space and understand the need for verticalisation of quick commerce in general,” he wrote. “Sadly, it won’t be us. But I’m extremely proud of what we did at Blip.”