India-based B2B ecommerce startup MaxWholesale raises $3m

Gurugram-based B2B ecommerce startup MaxWholesale, which provides products to Indian mom and pop stores, locally known as kiranas, has raised US$3 million in a round led by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Al Falaj Investment Company (AFI), an Abu Dhabi-based private family office.

Photo credit: Aliaksandr Mazurkevich / 123RF

Existing investors Maple Capital, Infoedge’s former chief financial officer Ambarish Raghuvanshi, Maple Capital’s Abhinav Grover, and a few other angel investors also participated in the round.

MaxWholesale says it has partnered with over 150 fast-moving consumer goods companies to help kirana stores discover the best price and scheme to buy products for selling. The company has roped in these stores to help them manage their inventory, as well as operates its own logistics subsidiary to enable next-day delivery to its customers. It claimed to have clocked in 20x revenue growth last year compared to 2018.

There are about 15 million kirana shops in India. These mom and pop shops rule three-fourths of the overall retail market in India, making this space lucrative for all technology companies.

“There was a dire need for technology in this sector and hence, we introduced data science into this field to make restocking more predictable and organized. With this approach, we are aiming to change the way in which the business is done at these stores,” Samarth Agrawal, founder and CEO of MaxWholesale, told local media Economic Times.

Even though India has more than 500 million internet users, over 97% of the nation’s population prefers to buy its groceries offline from their neighborhood kirana merchants, the company said in a statement.

MaxWholesale competes with companies such as ShopKirana, Jumbotail, Udaan, and Amazon.

This report was first published on KrAsia.