Food-grocery marketplace Jumbotail completes $25 million fundraise

Tech startups including Jumbotail are poised to transform the kirana store ecosystem at an unprecedented pace and scale over the next few years

Jumbotail, a business-to-business marketplace for food and grocery products, said on Friday night that it has completed its $25 million fundraise with a $14.2 million Series B3 round of funding led by VII Ventures. There was participation from Nutresa, Veronorte, Jumbofund, Klinkert Investment Trust, Peter Crosby Trust, Nexus Venture Partners, Discovery Ventures, and a group of HNIs (high net worth individuals). This round comes in quick succession after an $11 million Series B2 round raised in October 2020, bringing the total funds raised by the company to $54 million.
 

“We will use this capital to scale the business to new regions and to launch a suite of services to help FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) brands go to market exponentially faster and at the lowest cost,” said Ashish Jhina, co-founder, Jumbotail. “We are looking to bring in more top talent across the entire company to power this explosive growth.”
 

Jumbotail was founded by S. Karthik Venkateswaran, and Ashish Jhina, Stanford MBA classmates. Venkateswaran served with the Indian army and is a marketplaces tech and product veteran from eBay-US and Flipkart. Ashish Jhina is a third-generation apple farmer, and a former consultant with BCG, with deep experience in agricultural production and supply chains.
 

“We are very excited to make this investment in Jumbotail, which is one of India’s most dynamic and fast-growing businesses,” said Chadi Hajjar, managing director of VII Ventures. “We believe that Ashish (Jhina) and Karthik (Venkateswaran) share our vision of disrupting the status quo, and we admire their fighting spirit and determination to digitalise the grocery supply chain and retail landscape in India.”
 

Jumbotail serves 30,000 kirana stores via its full-stack e-commerce model. It consists of B2B marketplace platform, an industry-leading warehousing and last-mile delivery supply chain network. It also has a fintech platform for payment and credit solutions to kirana store owners.

Jumbotail’s new retail platform transforms kirana stores into modern omni-channel convenience grocery stores under the J24 brand within 24-48 hours. This offers kirana retailers a full suite of in-store technology and insights, daily fulfilment of thousands of products.
 

It also provides a B2C online store as well as loyalty solutions to better connect retailers to their consumers. This is in addition to omnichannel integrations with hyperlocal platforms such as Dunzo and Swiggy.
 

“Jumbotail’s New Retail platform powering J24 Stores is revolutionary, and their full-stack approach is the most cost-efficient and scalable way to modernize kirana stores,” said Sameer Brij Verma, managing director, Nexus Venture Partners. “We have been firm believers in the team and their approach from the very beginning.”
 

Jumbotail will also use the funds to hire top talent and scale its core B2B marketplace to new geographies across India. It would expand its network of J24 stores, grow its private label product portfolio and to extend its Go-To-Market services to more FMCG brands seeking entry into kirana stores and standalone supermarkets across the country.
 

An estimated 12 million kirana stores in India control more than 95 per cent of the country’s $450 billion food and grocery market. Experts said technology, supply chain, and fintech solutions from startups like Jumbotail are poised to transform the kirana store ecosystem at an unprecedented pace and scale over the next few years.