India, Aug. 14 -- In 2021, when much of India was still getting used to ordering groceries online, two teenage Stanford dropouts, Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, entered the market with a proposition that sounded excessive even by startup standards: groceries and essentials delivered by Zepto in 10 minutes.

Many questioned whether Zepto even understood India's ecommerce market and the capital-intensive nature of setting up such a 10-minute delivery app. But now more than five years later, the bet seems almost prescient.

In those five years, everything has changed. The likes of Eternal and Swiggy listed publicly, and scaled their quick commerce apps Blinkit and Instamart. BigBasket, Flipkart, Amazon and Jio are all trying to get a piec...