“Jumbotail is at an inflection point in its growth trajectory. We are seeing tremendous interest from investors across the globe who are drawn to our highly scalable and operationally profitable business model, built on the industry’s best technology and customer NPS. We will use this capital 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,” said Ashish Jhina, co-founder, Jumbotail.
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.
Chadi Hajjar, Managing Director of VII Ventures, commented, “We are very excited to make this investment in Jumbotail, which is one of India’s most dynamic and fast-growing businesses. We believe that Ashish and Karthik share our vision of disrupting the status quo, and we admire their fighting spirit and determination to digitalise the grocery supply chain and retail landscape in India. Jumbotail has all the ingredients for success, and we are keen to help them move forward in this next step of their journey.”
Jumbotail was founded in 2015 by S. Karthik Venkateswaran and Ashish Jhina.
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.
