Bengaluru-based Ninjacart, an agri-tech startup that connects farmers to retailers, raised Rs 250 crore in a series B funding. All existing investors including Accel US and Switzerland-based Syngeta Ventures participated the in this round and new investors, including South Korean private equity firm Neoplux, founder of ZiGeXn Jo Hirao, Russian firm HR Capital and venture debt firm Trifecta Capital joined the new investment round.
Nandan Nilekani, Mistletoe and Qualcomm Ventures also participated in this round. The RainMaker Group acted as the sole advisor to Ninjacart for this funding round.
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Ninjacart currently operates in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai, with a team of 800 people. It has built a sourcing network of over 3,000 farmers across South India, and moves fresh produce from the farm to over 4,000 retailers in less than 12 hours on a daily basis.
With this funding round, Ninjacart has now raised a total of Rs 310 crore. It has been identified as one of the top 11 Indian start-ups to enable $50 billion in online commerce by Google, Bain and Omidiyar.
The funding will be used to expand its market reach to 10 cities, strengthen the product and technology team, ramp up its headcount and scale its supply chain infrastructure.
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Founded in 2015 by former TaxiForSure executives, Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Kartheeswaran K K, Ashutosh Vikram, Sharath Loganathan and Vasudevan Chinnathambi, Ninjacart started off as a hyper-local delivery firm, but soon pivoted to a new business model of sourcing fresh fruits and vegetables from farmers at higher than local market rates and supplying them to kirana store retailers.
“We leverage technology to solve one of the toughest agricultural supply chain problems and enable retailers and merchants to source fresh produce directly from the farmers at competitive prices. The aim is to increase farmers’ incomes by helping them double production on the same acreage, reduce food wastage, introduce competitive prices for retailers who make good margins of 30-40 per cent and ensure quality food for all consumers,” said Vasudevan Chinnathambi, co-founder at NinjaCart to news agencies.
“We are preparing for our launch in Mumbai and Delhi (by early next year). We are hiring teams and building out facilities,” said
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