Supply chain start-up Ninjacart raises $100m

Vegetables, fruits and grocery supply chain startup Ninjacart said on Friday that it has raised $100 million (Rs 699 crore) from leading investment firm Tiger Global to build capacity for serving retailers and restaurants across the country.

"We plan to build capacity to serve retailers and restaurants, launch new product categories and hire teams with the fresh capital raised through Series C funding (third) round," the city-based firm said in a statement.

The four-year-old startup delivers fruits and vegetables sourced directly from 13,500 farmers in 20 states across the country and supplies to 17,000 retail shops and restaurants in seven cities daily.

The seven cities are Bengaluru, Chennai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune.

The states from where fruits and vegetables are sourced directly from the farmers include Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarkhand and West Bengal.

With five co-founders, the startup raised $34 million (Rs 221 crore) in Series B or second round of funding in December 2018 from the US-based Accel Partners, Syngenta Ventures, the venture capital arm of Syngenta AG, based at Basel in Switzerland, and leading Japanese billionaire Jo Hirao.

In the Series A or first round of funding, $5.5 million (Rs 37 crore) was raised in February 2017 from Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and Accel India.

"Our made-for-India technology and India centric solutions have disrupted the way fruits and vegetables move from farms to consumers, improving traditional supply chain, which is bogged in inefficiencies and zero food security," Ninjacart co-founder and Chief Executive Thirukumaran Nagarajan said in the statement.

The other four co-founders are K.K. Kartheeswaran, Ashutosh Vikram, Sharath Loganathan and Vasudevan Chinnathambi.

The company's sourcing network has 100 collection centres across the states to procure fresh goods.

"Our technology-based supply chain and procurement processes have increased farmers' income by 15-20 per cent and enabled retailers to get quality produce fresh at their shops," said NagarajanA

The company plans to hire 80-100 techies in the next 8-9 months.

With a cumulative average growth rate (CAGR) of 400 per cent since 2016, the company has posted Rs 120 crore revenue in fiscal 2018-19 and turned operationally profitable.

--IANS

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