SUMMARY
The company has raised INR 5 Cr ($0.7 Mn) in seed round last year
It transforms small neighbourhood stores into omnichannel modern stores
India’s retail sector is set to grow to $1.3 Tn by the fiscal year 2025, as per a RedSeer report
Bengaluru-based ecommerce platform Gully Network Retail, on Thursday (November 5), announced that it has raised a $1.2 Mn pre-Series A funding round led by early-stage investor Venture Catalysts and DFAN. The company plans to use this funding to open new income streams with scale.
Prior to this, Gully Network Retail had raised INR 5 Cr ($0.7 Mn) in its seed funding round from Orios Venture. The company was also a part of Orios’s seed-stage acceleration programme Misfits in August 2020, along with eight other startups such as Karbon Card, CityCash, MoneyOnClick, Intelligence Node, GolBol, Krishify, Leher, and YumLane.
The company was founded in 2019 by IIT-Madras and IIM-Ahmedabad alumni Ajay Nain and Prateek Chaturvedi. Nain has also cofounded furniture rental platform RentoMojo, while Chaturvedi has expertise in distribution and analytics space post working with Cipla and McKinsey.
Gully Network Retail is a technology-enabled chain of small-format kirana stores for hyperlocal delivery. The platform transforms small neighbourhood stores into omnichannel modern stores, making the store’s experience as well as a business model more competitive. The company, in its press statement, claims to have doubled its net income and completely automate its operations.
Commenting on the investment, Nain said, “We see that despite using multiple platforms for online sales, POS, supply, and loan, retailers still struggle with manual and inefficient day-to-day operations. Non-exclusive B2B apps have not gained loyalty from retailers. We work exclusively with stores and tech-enabled them in all possible ways.”
According to a Redseer Consulting report, India’s retail sector is set to grow to $1.3 Tn by the fiscal year 2025 from the current $1 Tn. The report highlights that the unorganised retail share in the segment will fall from 84% to 77% in the next five years, but it will continue to be a dominant category. Meanwhile, organised retail, both online and offline, is poised to grow from 16% to 22%.
With over 12 Mn kirana stores across hyperlocal areas, almost every major ecommerce platform Myntra, Walmart, Flipkart, Reliance, Grofers and Big Basket have started working with the unorganised retail shops to penetrate deeper into the Indian market.
