Rural retail aggregator, SuperK, on Thursday said that it has raised ₹6 crore, as a part of its seed funding round led by Strive VC.
The round also saw participation from Firstcheque VC, Ramakant Sharma & Syndicate, serial entrepreneur Srinivas Anumolu; director of platforms and product partnerships at Facebook, Anand Chandrasekaran, co-founder of Groww, Lalit Keshre; co-founder of Instamojo, Sampad Swain amongst others.
According to the company, it will use this investment for expanding its infrastructure, improving its tech stack, and hiring talent.
SuperK helps franchise stores to manage procurement, marketing, promotions, and merchandising for all stores through a tech-based system and a standard operating plan.
“Our mission is to bring modern retail experiences to the smallest of towns in India by empowering entrepreneurs from these towns to easily own and operate supermarkets. Most other startups that are helping retailers are only providing tools to these stores while we are driving outcomes for the stores by using the technology ourselves,” said Neeraj Menta, co-founder at SuperK.
According to Menta, the company will now be investing in logistics infrastructure and tech products to further scale its network of stores.
Further, the company also claims to have built an end-to-end integrated system that enables franchise stores to offer standardized low pricing, discounts, cashbacks, with a digital bill. The startup’s system connects warehouses, stores, and vendors via mobile apps.
“While existing organized retailers are competing with individual retailers, SuperK is enabling local entrepreneurs to effectively compete with large chains. Their unique business model allows them to be asset-light and operate with negative working capital. This allows SuperK to scale much faster than any other retail chain,” said Nikhil Kapur, partner at Strive.
At present, SuperK claims to have served more than 40,000 families and is expecting to reach an annual gross merchandise value of $10 million by the end of 2021.
The company is also in the process of launching a mobile app for customers to place orders, provide financial services for customers through stores and help with in-store tech for engagement and marketing.
