Jumbotail, a new retail platform and B2B marketplace for food and grocery products, has raised $14.2 million Series B3 round of funding led by VII Ventures with participation from Nutresa, Veronorte, Jumbofund, Klinkert Investment Trust, Peter Crosby Trust, Nexus Venture Partners, Discovery Ventures, and a group of HNIs and industry leaders. This round comes in quick succession after a $11M Series B2 round raised in October 2020, bringing the total funds raised by the company to $54mn.
Ashish Jhina, Co-founder, Jumbotail, said, “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.”
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 serves 30,000 kirana stores via its full stack e-commerce model consisting of its B2B marketplace platform, an industry leading warehousing and last-mile delivery supply chain network, and a fintech platform for payment and credit solutions to kirana store owners. Jumbotail’s New Retail platform transforms kirana stores into modern omni-channel convenience grocery stores under the J24 brand within 24-48 hours – offering kirana retailers a full suite of in-store technology and insights, daily fulfillment of thousands of products, a B2C online store as well as loyalty solutions to better connect retailers to their consumers, in addition to omnichannel integrations with hyperlocal platforms such as Dunzo and Swiggy.
Jumbotail will use the funds to hire top talent, scale its core B2B marketplace to new geographies across India, expand its network of J24 stores, grow its private label product portfolio and to extend its Go-To-Market services to more FMCG brands seeking entry into kirana stores and standalone supermarkets across the country.
Sameer Brij Verma, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners, adds, “Jumbotail’s New Retail platform powering J24 Stores is revolutionary, and their full stack approach is the most cost efficient and scalable way to modernize kirana stores. We have been firm believers in the team and their approach from the very beginning”.
Jumbotail was founded by S.Karthik Venkateswaran, and Ashish Jhina, Stanford MBA classmates. Karthik served with the Indian army in hard combat and is a marketplaces tech/product veteran from eBay-US and Flipkart. Ashish Jhina is a 3rd generation apple farmer, and a former consultant with BCG, with deep experience in agricultural production and supply chains.
An estimated 12 million kirana stores in India control more than 95% of the country’s $450B food and grocery market. Technology, supply chain, and fintech solutions from startups like Jumbotail are poised to transform the kirana store ecosystem at an unprecedented pace and scale over the next few years
