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Mumbai-based Equanimity Ventures has led the maiden investment round in FreshVnF, a fresh fruit and vegetable tech platform that optimises the supply chain for hotels, restaurants, cafes and retail consumers. Other investors included GVFL and the family office of Manish Choksi.
Choksi is the non-executive vice chairman and part of the promoter group of Asian Paints Limited and invested through his family office.
Supplying fresh fruits and vegetables from farm to fork has been a challenge for years. ‘‘FreshVnF is changing this by leveraging new age technology, current mobile penetration and availability of cheap data to build an efficient supply chain helping reduce wastage and simultaneously ensuring fresh produce reaches your plate,’’ said Rajesh Sehgal, Managing Partner at Equanimity Ventures.
Sanjay Randhar, Managing Partner at GVFL said, ‘‘FreshVnF, is an agri-tech company that is disrupting the supply chain of sourcing and delivery of fresh farm produce through its technology-focused approach, thereby bringing significant efficiencies in the system and having a huge impact on the reduction in wastage of fresh produce in India. We are delighted to back the credible FreshVnF team for their initiatives that result in better income to farmers and quality fresh products to consumers.’’
Atul Kumar, Co-Founder at FreshVnF said ‘‘We are thrilled to welcome Equanimity and GVFL. Their experience at nurturing and scaling start-ups, will help us achieve our goal of transforming the food supply chain and reinforces the market opportunity, the founding team’s vision, and our capability to address this market at scale. These funds will help us grow our farm network for consistent supplies, build our technology platform for seamless supply chain operations at scale, and help us achieve our goal of providing fresh farm produce to end customer within 16 hours of harvesting. FreshVnF will work aggressively to increase its retail footprint and service over one lakh retail customers in western India.’’
Equanimity Ventures is a VC fund investing in capital efficient, technology enabled, early stage companies. Equanimity was floated in 2017 by Rajesh Sehgal, a former senior executive director at Franklin Templeton Investments.
Equanimity has built up an admirable portfolio that includes companies like retail technology company PeelWorks, online events booking platform Bookeventz, online parenting platform BabyChakra, investment app Sqrrl, Baby monitoring product RayBaby and medical supplies marketplace DrStore.
GVFL Limited is one of the first venture capital firms in India. It has supported ventures working on cutting edge of technology as well as entrepreneurs with innovative ideas and growth companies across sectors. GVFL has managed 8 funds, invested in nearly 92 companies and exited nearly 75% with handsome returns to investors. GVFL is one of very few domestic fund houses to have full investment life cycle experience.
