Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

E-commerce giant Flipkart and its parent Walmart Inc. are together investing $145 million in agritech startup Ninjacart to strengthen their grocery supply chains amid mounting competition from other similar initiatives like JioMart, Amazon India, Tata-owned BigBasket, among others. This is the third time Flipkart has invested in the fresh produce supply chain company Ninjacart.

“With this investment, we’re further able to strengthen our grocery footprint and offering as consumers across the country throng to e-grocery for quality and affordable options in the fresh category,” Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer of Flipkart Group, was quoted as saying.

The investment will help Ninjacart build technology and infrastructure to organise, empower and enhance the lives of millions of agri-value chain participants, including farmers, resellers, retailers, consumers, and supply chain participants, according to a Flipkart statement. Ninjacart, it said, has been investing significantly in tech platforms and supply-chain infrastructure over the past two years.

Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Co-founder, and CEO, Ninjacart, said, “Thanks to our employees, farmers, retailers, and all ecosystem players. The funds will enable us to dream beyond organizing the farmer-to-retailer ecosystem to a much larger goal of organizing the complete agri ecosystem and enabling transparent commerce.

India is at a cusp of formalizing the agriculture industry, with the advent to better road connectivity, GST, seamless payments, digital infrastructure, etc. This opens up a tremendous opportunity to organize our agri ecosystem landscape like never before. We are investing in this huge potential to create value. The funds will be deployed to build world-class teams, scalable tech platforms to organise and grow the network.”

Flipkart, meanwhile, said it offers groceries in 1,800 cities and towns and aims to take it to more than 2,000 more towns by the middle of next year. Fresh fruits and vegetables will be an integral part of this expansion. “Flipkart is also working to bring efficiencies in the community e-grocery shopping model,” the statement said, adding the company has intensified its focus on partnering with farmer producer organisations to provide access to high-quality fresh produce, staples, pulses and spices.

Ninjacart connects farmers directly with retailers, restaurants, and service providers. Currently, the company’s supply chain is said to be equipped for moving vegetables and fruits from farmers to retailers and businesses across seven cities, every day in less than 12 hours. Earlier in 2019, Walmart and Flipkart have made an undisclosed investment in Ninjacart, followed by another $30 million investment in 2020.

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