Jumbotail, an online wholesale marketplace for food and grocery products, has raised $11 million in series B2 round of funding led by Canadian venture capital fund Heron Rock, with participation from Jumbofund, Nexus Venture Partners, Siddhi Capital, Reaction Fund, Pimpernel Holdings and a group of high net individuals.
The Bengaluru-based startup sources and sells products such as staples, pulses and other fast moving consumer goods to small mom-and-pop stores, kiranas, and supermarkets. It currently serves more than 30,000 small stores its full stack B2B e-commerce model, which includes warehouses, a last-mile delivery supply chain network, and a fintech platform for payment and credit solutions to store owners.
Jumbotail will use the funds to scale its core B2B marketplace to new geographies across India, expand its network of B2C home delivery product named J24 stores, and to grow its private label product portfolio.
The B2B startup had previously secured Rs90 crore in a series B round of funding in June last year, and another $8.5 million in its series A round in 2017. It was founded in 2015 by S. Karthik Venkateswaran and Ashish Jhina. Venkateswaran has worked with online marketplaces such as eBay and Flipkart. Jhina, who has worked with Boston Consulting Group, also has experience in farming, agricultural production and supply chains.
“We have built a very capital efficient and operationally profitable business by focusing on solving problems for kiranas. We enjoy tremendous goodwill from our kirana customers on the back of our best-in-class convenience and service, which remained uninterrupted even during the covid lockdowns. Our J24 store network is emerging as the ecosystem of choice for kirana store owners looking to seamlessly transform their kiranas into modern grocery stores, and to compete better in an increasingly technology-driven retail world,” Ashish Jhina, Co-founder, Jumbotail, said in a statement.
“Jumbotail has displayed tremendous grit and resilience in the face of unprecedented odds and continued to execute at a level of excellence that is rarely seen. We are doubling down on our investment in Jumbotail as we believe they are best positioned to transform food & grocery retail in India,” added Tom Williams, general partner of Heron Rock.
There are about 12 million kirana stores in India, controlling more than 95% of the $350 billion food and grocery market. Jumbotail is one of several startups in the business-to-business (B2B) wholesale supply space focused on kirana stores and other mom-and-pop store formats. Others such as ShopKirana, BigBasket, and Udaan are also creating systems for easy access to wholesale procurement for small stores. Behemoths such as Reliance Jio, Amazon and Walmart are also competing with tech startups to supply wholesale inventory to kirana stores.
