Jumbotail, a food and grocery wholesale marketplace has raised $8.5 million in a Series A funding round from Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture Partners.
According to a report by Inc42, the company plans to use the funds it raised to build technologies and enhance its operational capabilities.
Founded by Stanford alumni S Karthik Venkateswaran and Ashish Jhina in November 2015, Jumbotail is a Bengaluru-based online wholesale marketplace for food and grocery.
It delivers to wholesale customers such as kirana stores, hotels, restauranst and cafes in Bengaluru.
Ashish Jhina, co-founder & COO, Jumbotail, said, “Manufacturers and brands can instantly get direct and highly targeted access to thousands of retailers and institutional customers through the Jumbotail platform without needing to invest in expensive physical distribution networks. Jumbotail also opens up the kirana network to financial institutions looking to extend credit in a cost-effective and scalable manner.”
Jumbotail has a wide selection of products including staples, spices, dry fruits, packaged foods, and FMCG products. Sellers (traders, manufacturers and brands) have an option to list their food, grocery and FMCG products on its marketplace.
The marketplace is accessible to customers through a mobile app available in four languages – Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, and English.
It wants to use data science, technology and design to organize the food and grocery ecosystem in India.
The does storefront delivery and payments collection for its sellers and also provides them with working capital credit from third-party credit providers.
“98% of India’s food and grocery consumption is via kirana stores. Jumbotail brings tech-centric innovation to address massive inefficiencies in terms of product discovery, distribution costs, stock outs, and pricing. We are excited by their ability to eliminate information asymmetry, aggregate previously unavailable demand and supply data, and significantly improve economic outcomes for manufacturers, brands, financial institutions and kirana owners,” said Bala Srinivasa, Partner, Kalaari Capital.
As per a company statement, Nexus had previously invested $2 million in Jumbotail.
According to the Inc42 report, the Indian online grocery market is estimated to reach $40 million (Rs 270 crore) by FY19 at a CAGR of 62% from 2016 to 2022.
Apart from Jumbotail, other players in the grocery segment include StockIn, BigBasket, and ZopNow among others.