Jumbotail, a online wholesale platform for grocery & vegetable products and new age retail platform, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $85 Mn in a Series C round. Artal Asia Pte Ltd, a company affiliated to U.S. based Invus Group, spearheaded the funding round. Ajax Capital, the family office of the veteran FMGC entrepreneur Ajay Gupta, also took part in the funding round.

The company did not comment about the valuation it commanded in the latest round.

The series C round had a secondary component, with early investors Nexus Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital making partial exit. The company did not disclose any details about the ROI or profit that both VC firms have made through this partial exit. According to VCCEdge, Kalaari held a 12.97% and Nexus Venture held a 26.56% stake in the Bengaluru based company.

Following the latest funding round, the company’s total fund raising amount has now reached to $125 Mn.

Commenting on the Series C round, Ashish Jhina, Co-founder & COO, Jumbotail, said, “We nearly quadrupled our scale in 2021 and are looking to further accelerate our growth trajectory in the coming year. We will continue to invest aggressively to make Jumbotail the pre-eminent destination for food and grocery brands to reach the overwhelming majority of India’s consumers through our pan-India network of kirana partners.”

Jumbotail was founded in 2015 by S.Karthik Venkateswaran and Ashish Jhina, both of whom were Stanford classmates. The six year old firm essentially operates a marketplace platform that connects thousands of mom & pop grocery retailers with brand and staple manufactures. The company further streamlines this retail and manufacturing networking through logistics and supply solution.     

Additionally, it helps in digitizing the mom and pop stores by providing POS and other solutions to the kirana stores.   

The post Jumbotail raises $85 Mn in Series C, Nexus & Kalaari make partial exit appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

The latest tranche in the series B round was led by VII Ventures while Nutresa, Veronorte, Nexus Venture Partners and other investors also partipcated in the round.     

Ashish Jhina, co-founder JumboTail, “Jumbotail will use the funds to scale the business  to new regions, to double down on our J24 store network and to launch a suite of services to help FMCG brands go to market exponentially faster and at the lowest cost. We are looking to bring in more top talent across the entire company to power this explosive growth.”

Jumbotail is essentially a B2B wholesale marketplace that sources food and groceries to small mom and pop stores and large supermarkets. The startup claims that it currently serves 30,000 small stores in its full-stack e-commerce model.

Jumbotail offers the following services in its full-stack e-commerce model

• Warehousing
• Supply chain network
• Last mile delivery
• Fintech platform for offering credit facilities

Over the last few months, Wholesale and Mom & Pop stores have attracted huge traction & interest. It won’t be an exaggeration to claim that the wholesale space is creating the next wave for the e-commerce sector.

From big players like Fipkart, Reliance JioMart and Amazon to emerging startups like Udaan and JumboTail, the wholesale food & grocery market has suddenly become highly competitive. With Tata’s also in talks to buy BigBasket, this space may see further heightened competition.

India’s food and grocery market size is estimated to be around $350 Bn with small kirana stores controlling more than 95% of the market. Retail analysts claim that while the growth opportunity is huge in the wholesale space, bringing small kirana stores in the organized market won’t be all that easy.

The post Jumbotail wraps up Series B2 round with $14.2 Mn add-on Funding appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.