These 4 Indian Startups Are Ensuring You Get Your Daily Glass of Milk

Milk is considered one of the most nutritious intakes that a person can have and is primarily the only source for nutrition for babies at the beginning. Milk also can be consumed in various forms such that it can be drunk directly, used to add flavors in certain dishes, utilized to make desserts and is a core ingredient for other dairy products.

India at present is the world's largest milk producer and its production rate is only growing by 35.61 per cent during the last six years to 198.4 million tonnes in 209-20. Apart from its consumption value, Milk also creates livelihood. Around 80 million rural households are engaged in milk production, mostly the landless, and small farmers. Milk contributes close to 1/3rd of the gross income of rural households.

On the occasion of World Milk Day, we will look at five Indian startups that are delivering milk straight from the farm

Country Delight

Started in 2015 by Chakradhar Ghade and Nitin Kaushal, Country Delight claims to offer natural, fresh and unadulterated milk directly to the doorstep of the consumer. Consumer ordering and servicing happens through a mobile application. It launched with selling milk and has since expanded to other dairy products, such as curd, eggs, ghee, bread, etc, and even staples. The startup has to date raised Series C funding and is backed by Matrix Partners, Orios Partners, Elevation Capital, among others. The Bengaluru-based startup claims to source Milk from farms within a 150-200 km radius and delivers it within 24-36 hours from the time of collection.

The startup currently serves 1.5 lakh households.

Stellapps

Founded by Ranjith Mukundan, Praveen Nale, Ramkrishna Adukuri and Venkatesh Seshayee in 2011, Stellapps is a farm-to-consumer dairy digitization service provider. The startup leverages Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, cloud, data analytics among others to improve dairy supply chain parameters, including milk production, milk procurement, cold chain, animal insurance, and farmer payments.

The startup's clients are most of the major private and cooperative diaries and it is helping in digitizing around 10 million liters worth $3.4 million every day. The startup is backed by venture debt fund Stride Ventures.

Milk Mantra

Founded by Srikumar along with Rashima Mishra in 2009, this Odisha-based startup has been delivering an array of packaged dairy products such as milk, lassi, curd, buttermilk, paneer, milk shakes, among others. The startup processing plants are in Konark and Sambalpur and claims to be a leading dairy brand in Eastern India. The startup has raised $25 million in venture capital funding over four rounds from Eight Roads, Neev Fund and Aavishkar VC. Milk Mantra's revenues have scaled from $2 million in 2013 to $32 million in 2020 and are now reaching more than 300,000 households every day. The startup's farmers have now grown to more than 60,000.

Milkbasket

Established in 2015 by Ashis Goel, Yatish Talavdia, Anant Goel and Anurag Jain, Milkbasket is one of the leading players in the daily grocery delivery segment. The startup has identified that milk attracts customers to buy other products, hence the name Milk Basket, where a customer can get milk and other essential products delivered at their doorsteps. The startup has raised close to $40 million in funding and is backed by Inflection Point Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures, Mayfield India, among others