[Funding alert] Foodtech startup Pluckk raises $5M in seed round from Exponentia Ventures

Fresh produce food-tech venture, Pluckk (a brand owned by Fruveggiie Tech Pvt limited) on Wednesday raises $5 million in seed round, from Exponentia Ventures, a fund focussed on emerging business ideas in both B2C (business-to-consumer) and B2B (business-to-business) space.

This round of funding will be utilised towards building the right team, technology, farm to fork infrastructure, customer acquisition and expansion into key metro cities, the company said.

A part of this fund will also be used to acquire Indus Fresh – an existing player in the fresh FnB category serving both B2C and B2B customers like Flipkart, Amazon, Swiggy, Dunzo and Zepto.

Founded in 2021, by Pratik Gupta, Pluckk aims to build India’s first digital commerce business to serve the growing demand of lifestyle-oriented fresh produce. The company’s proposition is centered on global food trends ranging from vegan, carb alternatives, gut health, immunity to plant-forward eating to prevent diabetes and mental health.

It offers a large variety of special selections of gourmet fruits and vegetables directly to end consumers, doing away with mediators. The platform has already onboarded 100 plus farmers across Mumbai and Bengaluru and plans to reach the 1,000 mark by March 2022.

Pratik Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder, Pluckk, said,

“The biggest consumer revolution we are witnessing today is that consumers not only want to enjoy eating but are also increasingly very careful on what they eat. Pluckk aims to be the brand of choice by providing the widest curated range of such lifestyle-oriented fresh produce. At the core Pluckk will work with farmers through its bespoke win-win program that focuses on farm practices to ensure residue free and traceable produce.”

With this fresh funding, the products and services of Pluckk will now also be made available to a wider set of consumers in key metro cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai (further expansion plans to Gurugram, Pune, Hyderabad) on its direct-to-consumer (D2C) platform as well as through leading ecommerce platforms under its brand name.

ALSO READ

[Funding alert] Edufund raises $1M in seed round from Anchorage Capital Partners, others

On the firm’s third investment, Alok Gupta, Partner, Exponentia Ventures, said, “Our commitment continues to invest in ideas that connect with the emerging ecosystem. In Pluckk, we find an agile business team with execution focus and leveraging a deep customer insight which can scale to millions of customers.”