IFC to invest $25 million in Supermarket Grocery Supplies

Company to use funds to expand to 20 more cities

Local residents buy tomatoes from a roadside vegetable market in Ahmedabad

International Finance Corporation has said it will invest $25 million in Supermarket Grocery Supplies (SGSPL), which is backed by Ascent Capital and Helion Ventures.

Other investors in the company include Zodius Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners. The Bengaluru-based company is also promoted by several entrepreneurs and experienced professionals including V S Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Abhinay Choudhari, Vipul Parekh and VS Ramesh. 

Currently SGSPL operates in nine cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Mysore, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Delhi-NCR. 

It is engaged in wholesale trading and supply of groceries, provisions, fruits, vegetables and related household products. SGSPL is the principal supplier, and intellectual property licensor, on a non-exclusive basis, to Bigbasket.com.

 

The company plans to use the funds to expand to 20 more tier-II cities over the next two years. It has already started operations in an tier-II city in the last two months.

SGSPL procures fresh fruits and vegetables directly from farmers through its network of collection centers. It already has four operating collection centers and intends to grow this network to more than 15 centers across the country.

SGSPL has also rolled out a new service where is supplies groceries to kirana stores (mom-and-pop grocers), providing them the benefit of better inventory management and logistics.