Ninjacart annouces that it will seed-fund agritech startups - in two days flat!

Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Co-founder and CEO, Ninjacart took to social media platform LinkedIn to announce that the agritech giant will help startups in the sector get seed-funded in two days flat.

"Do you have an idea, you want to own and solve problems at scale ? We would like to partner with you. Even if you don't have an idea but have passion and zeal to solve problems independently, we love you," he said.

He added that technology was the only way to build scalable solution. The process will be simple. The startup will have two calls - the first call for screening and second for evaluation. It will take two days from the first call to get a yes or no from the Ninjacart team.

He said as the team continues to build Ninjacart, they have realised that it isn't possible to organise the entire agri ecosystem through one company.

"The only way to achieve this dream is to work/promote/partner/develop a like-minded talented team who could dream with us," Thirukumaran said.

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What does partnering with Ninjacart mean?

1. Seed capital for your dream

2. Access to Ninjacart team

3. Access to farmers, partners, and customers

4. Access to infrastructure and learnings

The key expectations include:

1. Minimum three to four-member team

2. Ready to work full time on the idea

3. Can think and build technology

Ninjacart, a technology platform for small shops and restaurants to procure fresh fruits and vegetables, had grown its operational revenue by 2.5x in FY19 to Rs 133.64 crore.

The fresh-produce supplier already had the venture arm of Syngenta, which develops seeds and crop-protection products, and Nandan Nilekani's NRJN Trust on its cap table. Nilekani also invested in his individual capacity in December 2018, and sits on the board of Ninjacart. And, Tiger Capital had lined up a $100-million round in the agritech startup in the following months.

In early 2019, Ninjacart had less than 5,000 active retailers on its platform in Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad, with plans to launch in Mumbai and Delhi. On the supply side, it sourced fresh fruits and vegetables from 3,500 farmers in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra.

Its flywheel had been sorted.

The Bengaluru-headquartered Ninjacart was scaling its procurement and fulfilment engine, constantly innovating for warehouse tracking, automation of sorting and picking of fresh produce, better capacity utilisation, and route planning.

The capital from Tiger Global Management enabled Ninjacart to scale by another 3.5X to touch Rs 469 crore in operational revenue in FY20. This saw it sell fresh produce to more than 60,000 shops and restaurants across seven cities, and work with 44,000 suppliers of fruits and vegetables.