Online grocery store Satvacart raises seed funding from Palaash Venture
Satvacart, a Gurgaon-based online delivery startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Palaash Ventures and other angel investors, including a former managing director of a leading PE fund. Launched in January 2015, the online grocery store offers 4000 selected products, across categories such as grocery, fruits and vegetables, personal care, household essentials and baby care.
“We plan to use these funds to scale up operations, for customer acquisition, and to build a team that can augment technology and support growth,” says Rahul Hari, Founder and CEO, Satvacart. He adds that the venture looks forward to expanding their service across six new cities by the end of this year.
The company has brought on board three advisors; Arvind Gupta, Head of Digital India Foundation; Vijay Shukla, Managing Partner of Setu Ventures; and Pushpinder Singh, Founder, TravelKhana.
“We believe in the vision of the company, and expect them to scale up their business in the coming future. Groceries and personal care being standard, yet high-involvement categories, we believe teams that focus on delivering a great shopping experience will eventually see success,” says Tapesh Singhi, Partner, Palaash Ventures.
He adds that along with good operational know-how, the Satvacart team has also displayed phenomenal growth and the ability to connect with its customers, leading to good organic reach.
In the past six months, the venture claims to have grown exponentially at the the rate of 100 percent month-on-month. With limited marketing and a focus on profitability, the team has been able to take the business into receiving triple digit orders.
“We believe we are at the right juncture, and at the right time, to make the most of the opportunities in e-grocery. The seed fund that we have closed is a validation of our vision and operational capabilities. From the beginning, our focus has been on delivering excellent shopping experiences to our customers, by utilizing analytics and technology to simplify finding and ordering products, offering an assortment of carefully selected products, and engaging deeply with our customers,” says Rahul.
Since the beginning of 2015, the grocery delivery industry has witnessed huge traction. Delivery models like ZopNow, Grofers and PepperTap have received large amounts of funding from leading venture capital firms.
In April 2015, online grocer Zop-Now raised $10 million in a funding round led by San Francisco-based Dragoneer Investment Group, with existing investors Accel Partners, Qual-Comm Ventures and Times Internet. During the same month, Gurgaon-based hyperlocal startup PepperTap raised $10m in funding from Sequoia and SAIF Partners. Interestingly, along the same time, Grofers also raised $35 million, led by Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital.