FRAAZO Raises $11Mn In Series A Funding With the current fundraise, the company is set to expand operations pan-India, while cashing in on the unprecedented digital adoption within the fragmented fresh food market
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
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FRAAZO, on Friday, announced the close of a fresh $11 million Series A financing round of equity funding led by Sixth Sense Ventures. Sixth Sense is joined by NABARD backed NABVENTURES and existing investors Equanimity Ventures, Manish Choksi, vice chairman and member of the board of directors of Asian Paints Limited, and Apar Group also participated in this round.
"We are thrilled by the support of ambitious, successful investors who see the disruptive potential of technology in building D2C brands. The need for hygiene, digital convenience, and customer service has never been greater, especially with quality inequity and disparities in service levels across traditional channels. Targeting 1,000 centres across the country, FRAAZO aims to become India's leading fruits and vegetables player, with a capability to deliver fresh produce to a customer's doorstep within 15 minutes of ordering," said Atul Kumar, co-founder and chief executive officer, FRAAZO.
Having successfully proven its model in Mumbai, the company has catered to approximately 1 million orders within a year of being launched in the pandemic. The $300 billion fruits and vegetables market is seeing an increasing shift towards digital, with the online grocery segment growing at a 50 per cent CAGR, pushed even further by the behavior changes due to the pandemic. With the current fund raise, FRAAZO is set to expand operations pan-India, while cashing in on the unprecedented digital adoption within the fragmented fresh food market.
"Fruits and vegetables, the largest category in perishables, is completely fragmented, offline, with no MRP constraint, nor GST – this, coupled with significant supply-chain moat, and high order frequency, makes it a highly scalable online opportunity! Verticalisation of supply-chain is critical for perishables, which is where horizontal grocery players have found it challenging, and FRAAZO has been able to address this by their fully-optimised fresh supply-chain. With a frequency-driven model, supply-chain moat, and a remarkable cross-functional team, coupled with product extensions to drive higher AOVs, FRAAZO is poised to dominate the perishables space. FRAAZO meets our sweet spot of investing in super scalable spaces, first-gen founders with a highly motivated entrepreneurial team, leveraging the change in behaviour of the evolved consumers of tomorrow," shared Nikhil Vora, founder and chief executive officer, Sixth Sense Ventures.
India's foremost fully integrated vertical supply-chain for perishables, FRAAZO's custom-built technology stack is aligned with the needs of the fresh produce supply chain. With a data driven demand forecasting engine, FRAAZO is able to accurately match demand and supply for every catchment thereby reducing supply chain losses, improving farmer income, and offering daily savings to its customers.
"The direct sourcing substantially increase farmers' income and provides them seamless access to urban markets at attractive prices. With this investment, NABVENTURES is looking to develop and strengthen the evolving D2C fresh food ecosystem," stated Dr. G. R. Chintala, chairman, NABARD and NABVENTURES.
"FRAAZO is a promising platform for sourcing of fruits, vegetables and other fresh produce directly from farmers that has excelled in its on-the-ground execution with a strong foundation built on freshness, traceability, and timeliness of delivery. With this current round and strong investor base, the sky seems to be the limit," added Rajesh Sehgal, managing partner, Equanimity Investments.
