Jumbotail, New Retail platform and B2B ecommerce marketplace for food and grocery products,announced on Tuesday that it had raised $85 million Series C round led by Artal Asia Pte. Ltd., an affiliate of Invus, a global equity investment firm.
Ajax Capital, the family office of veteran FMCG entrepreneur Ajay Gupta, also participated in the round.
The Series C round was a combination of primary and secondary investments, with early investors Nexus Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital taking minor part-exits in the secondary. This takes the total capital raised by the company to $125M.
Fresh infusion of capital to be used for
The company will use the funds to triple its engineering, product, design, data science, category management, marketing, and finance teams. It will also scale its core B2B marketplace to 100 cities and towns across India, expand its network of J24 stores, invest in large scale kirana entrepreneur skill development initiatives, and further strengthen its Go-To-Market services to support regional and new age FMCG brands.
Funders 'positive'
Francis Cukierman, Managing Director, Invus Asia and Benjamin Felt, Managing Director, Invus US will join Jumbotail’s Board of Directors. Cukierman and Felt commented, “Our evergreen structure enables us to partner for the long-term with companies who seek to transform their industries. We share Ashish and Karthik’s vision of digitising kirana stores to transform India’s food and grocery retail landscape at scale.”
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.”
Ajay Gupta, Ajax Capital, said, "I believe Jumbotail will make it infinitely easier for the next generation of FMCG brands to scale rapidly and cost effectively."
Tom Williams, sole GP of Heron Rock, and a Board Director in Jumbotail said, “This fundraise is a validation of the top-notch execution demonstrated by the Jumbotail team throughout the Covid pandemic and the immense value they are creating for brands and kirana store entrepreneurs in an incredibly capital efficient manner."
Jumbotail was founded in November 2015 by Stanford MBA classmates S Karthik Venkateswaran and Ashish Jhina.
An estimated 14 million kirana stores in India control more than 95 percent of the country’s $500B+ food and grocery market, the company said in a press release.
