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The traditional Supply Chain is highly inefficient, unorganized, and has a high rate of food wastage. Farmers experience price risk, information asymmetry about demand, distribution inefficiency, and receive late payments. Retailers face problems like higher costs, low quality and unhygienic produce, high price volatility, and the everyday hassle of going to the market.
Ninjacart is India's largest Fresh Produce Supply Chain platform. The company is pioneer in solving one of the toughest supply chain problems of the world by leveraging innovative technology. Their high-quality and hygienically handled fresh produce ensures healthy food to consumers.
Ninjacart - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Ninjacart |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bangalore, Karnataka, India |
| Industry | Logistics, Supply Chain |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Founders | Ashutosh Vikram, KartheeSwaran KK, Sharath Loaganathan, Sachin Jose, Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Vasudevan Chinnathambi |
| CEO | Thirukumaran Nagarajan |
| Area Served | India |
| Website | www.ninjacart.in |
Ninjacart - About and How it Works?
Ninjacart - Logo and its Meaning
Ninjacart - Founder and History
Ninjacart - Mission
Ninjacart - Recent News
Ninjacart - Team
Ninjacart - Business Model
Ninjacart - Revenue and Growth
Ninjacart - Funding and Investors
Ninjacart - Competitors
Ninjacart - Challenges Faced
Ninjacart - Future Plans
Ninjacart - FAQs
Ninjacart - About and How it Works?
Ninjacart is India's largest fresh produce supply chain company that is solving one of the toughest problems in the world through technology. The company connects producers of food directly with retailers, restaurants, and service providers using in-house applications that drive end to end operations.
Currently, their Supply Chain is equipped to move 1400 tones of perishables from farms to businesses, every day, in less than 12 hours.
Ninjacart is a developer of an agricultural marketing and supply chain platform intended to revolutionalize the fresh produce supply chain. The company's platform leverages data science, infrastructure, and networks to connect farmers directly to businesses and end retailers such as grocery stores, enabling retailers and merchants to source fresh farm produce directly from farmers in less time and in a cost-effective way.
- Ninjacart has eliminated intermediaries by taking control of the Supply Chain by using technology and analytics.
- The company has built reliable, cost-effective, and high-speed logistics and infrastructure to solve for inefficiencies in the Supply Chain.
- On one end, farmers get better prices and consistent demand, and on the other end, retailers receive fresh produce at competitive prices that are delivered to their doorstep.
Ninjacart - Logo and its Meaning
Ninjacart's logo is in green colour which indicates the company's intentions to revolutionalize the fresh produce supply chain.
Ninjacart - Founder and History
Founded by Ashutosh Vikram, KartheeSwaran KK, Sharath Loaganathan, Sachin Jose, Thirukumaran Nagarajan and Vasudevan Chinnathambi in 2015, the agri-tech startup has successfully built a tech-enabled supply chain for fresh farm produce, delivering 1,400 tonnes of fruits and vegetables daily.
Ninjacart started operating in 2015 as a hyperlocal grocery delivery platform, and their main aim was to help retailers take their inventory online and deliver quality groceries to consumers in less than 60 minutes from ordering at scale. This was still a novel concept back then.
But soon they realized that with little product differentiation, customers were unwilling to pay a premium rate just for the marginal convenience of ordering online, especially for fruits and vegetables. On one hand, kirana partners faced problems regarding tedious procurement processes and proper management of quality, hygiene, price, assortment and customer understanding. On the other, farmers experienced unfair practices, high food wastage due to a supply demand mismatch and lower incomes.
So, Ninjacart pivoted to an agri-tech platform to solve one of the toughest agricultural supply chain problems at its root, built reliable, cost-effective and high-speed infrastructure, and enabled retailers and merchants to source fresh produce directly from farmers daily.
Ninjacart - Mission
Ninjacart's mission and vision statement says, "Our vision is to build India's most efficient and largest Supply Chain platform and improve the lives of producers, businesses, and consumers in a meaningful manner."
Ashwini
Ninjacart - Recent News
E-commerce marketplace Flipkart and its US-based parent Walmart have jointly made their second investment amounting to about $30 million in fresh produce supply chain startup Ninjacart.
In a joint statement issued, Flipkart and Walmart said that the investment would deepen their partnership with Ninjacart and would improve its offerings and enhance customer experience.
Ninjacart - Team
- Thirukumaran Nagarajan - Co-founder & CEO
- Abhishek Agarwal - Director of Strategy
- Prashannth Vijayakumar - Full Stack Developer
- Kartheeswaran K K - Chief Operating Officer
- Theyagarajan S - AVP Product Management
Ninjacart - Business Model
Ninjacart's business model is based on removing inefficiencies and intermediate middlemen in the fruits and vegetables supply chain. On one hand, the company helps improve farmers’ incomes and provide a consistent demand and on the other hand, they deliver quality, fresh and hygienically handled produce to retailers and food service providers. Ninjacart buys from farmers and sell to retailers and food service providers within 12 hours.
Nagarajan says that more than 25% of the vegetables Ninjacart sells are procured directly from farmers. The company engages farmers in various awareness programmes to educate them about Ninjacart and the benefit of selling directly to the venture.
Ninjacart - Revenue and Growth
- Ninjacart's estimated annual revenue is currently $576.5M per year.
- Ninjacart's estimated revenue per employee is $251,000
The company's sourcing network has 100 collection centres across the states to procure fresh goods. With a cumulative average growth rate of 400% since 2016, the company has posted Rs 120 crore revenue in fiscal 2018-19 and turned operationally profitable.
The company aims to further build a farmer ecosystem, and has already started its work on creating a fintech platform for the farmers. This platform will help them get the capital they would need to buy tractors, build greenhouses, and other working capital they need from time to time.
Vibhavari Madki
Ninjacart - Funding and Investors
Ninjacart has raised a total of $203.7M in funding over 12 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on May 21, 2021 from a Venture Round. Ninjacart is funded by 19 investors in total. Walmart and Flipkart are the most recent investors.
| Date | Round | Amount | Lead Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 21, 2021 | Venture Round | $9.5M | Syngenta Ventures |
| Oct 12, 2020 | Corporate Round | $30M | Flipkart, Walmart |
| Dec 11, 2019 | Series C | $10M | Flipkart |
| Nov 15, 2019 | Debt Financing | $4.2M | Trifecta Capital Advisors |
| Jul 18, 2019 | Series C | $402K | - |
| Jun 21, 2019 | Series C | $10M | - |
| Apr 24, 2019 | Series C | $90M | Tiger Global Management |
| Dec 12, 2018 | Series B | $33.5M | Accel, Syngenta Ventures |
| Jul 30, 2018 | Series A | $4.9M | Accel, NRJN Trust |
| Mar 5, 2018 | Debt Financing | $1.1M | Trifecta Capital Advisors |
| Apr 11, 2017 | Series A | $5.7M | Accel |
Ninjacart - Competitors
Ninjacart's top competitors include Farmioc, Chilibeli, AgroStar and FarmLead.
Ninjacart - Challenges Faced
“It’s been a crazy journey, we encountered a lot of problems and we solved every small issue we met on the way with the help of technology and right now we move at least 1,000 tonnes of vegetables and fruits across seven cities,” says Thirukumaran Nagarajan, cofounder and CEO of Ninjacart.
The journey of any startup does not begin with immediate success. What once appeared to be problems may not actually create that much of an impact on the overall market, but something else completely unexpected could crop up.
Thirukumaran Nagarajan initially expected to scale-up to 50 tonnes of fruits and vegetables from the get-go. It was only when the team first confronted the behemoth of Indian agri-trading that the importance of effectively understanding the real problem and pivoting the startup’s problem statement came into play. But this is not the only time startups should focus on pivoting, according to Thirukumaran.
He states, “Many entrepreneurs struggle to scale once a startup enters the growth stage. When you are a small size company, your needs and the problems you look to solve are completely different. Once you start growing, the business demands changes. For instance, we started with a supply of 1 or 2 tons of farmer produce. But today, we have grown to almost 300 tons of supply — in a day. Of course, we faced many problems related to scaling, like managing the large supply of the produce, keeping away from frauds, and hiring the right people.”
Yash Gupta
Ninjacart - Future Plans
Ninjacart looks forward to a future that will be driven by data and technology. The company has a database of around 40 different markets in terms of arrivals, supply, price, etc. According to Thirukumaran, they can predict the prices of vegetables and fruits, and production output in future.
According to Vasu, Ninjacart wants to focus on small vendors, mom-and-pop stores and unorganized provision stores — a segment it currently caters to and where the efficiency of its model lies. Ninjacart has 20,000 customers, including restaurants.
“In the past three years, we have built a template for the business which is creating value for all stakeholders,” said Kartheeswaran K K, chief operating officer and one of the six co-founders of Ninjacart. “Our focus is how we can take this to 1 million farmers in 10-15 cities across India and make it into an alternative supply chain for fruits and vegetables,” he said.
Ninjacart cofounder and CEO, Thirukumaran Nagarajan has revealed that the company is looking to build a fintech platform for the farmers that would help them with the necessary capital that they would need to set up greenhouses, buy tractors, and more such investments. He further added that this will be a key component of the farmer ecosystem that they are working on!
Ninjacart - FAQs
Who's the CEO of Ninjacart?
Thirukumaran Nagarajan is the current CEO of Ninjacart.
Who founded Ninjacart?
Ninjacart was founded by Ashutosh Vikram, KartheeSwaran KK, Sharath Loaganathan, Sachin Jose, Thirukumaran Nagarajan and Vasudevan Chinnathambi in 2015.
How does Ninjacart make money?
Ninjacart's business model is based on removing inefficiencies and intermediate middlemen in the fruits and vegetables supply chain.
When was Ninjacart started?
Ninjacart was founded in 2015.
Vidhi Punamiya
Author: Sarika Anand
Source : https://startuptalky.com/ninjacart-success-story/
Date : 2021-07-13T15:06:00.000Z