SuperK Nets $6 Mn To Offer Walk In Retail Stores To Small Towns

SuperK, a tech-enabled franchised grocery retailer for small towns, has raised $6 Mn (around INR 50 Cr) in a Series A funding round led by Blume Ventures, with participation from Silver Needle Ventures, Veltis Capital, Atrium Angels and some other angel investors and syndicates.

The Kadapa-based startup plans to use the fresh funds for tech development, hiring and scaling the platform to connect digital native brands with SuperK customers.

SuperK was founded in 2020 by Anil Thontepu and Neeraj Menta, batchmates from BITS Pilani.

It is pertinent to note that both the founders are second-time entrepreneurs. Their latest startup is a franchised retail chain, operating in over 80 small towns of Andhra Pradesh. It claims to be serving over 5 Lakh families for the last four years. 

According to the startup, its customers are moving from unorganised kirana stores to a branded, organised retail experience where a majority of customers go through a self-service store for the first time. 

SuperK also aims to create a modern grocery experience for small-town customers at transparent and affordable prices. It has a full track of customer behaviour by collecting granular data at every purchase. This data allows for personalised offers for every customer. Tech is also used to motivate and gamify the store partners to drive specific selling behaviour.

Menta said, “At SuperK, our vision is to bring a better grocery shopping experience for the small-town customers who are currently stuck with a subpar experience provided by their neighbourhood kirana store.”

As per SuperK’s statement, one store is set up for every 25k population, a ratio that allows the creation of a high density of stores in every district. 

The funding comes at a time when the online grocery stores are working on providing last-mile delivery services to reach as many pin codes as possible. 

Last year, Walmart-owned Flipkart launched its first grocery fulfilment centre in Bhubaneswar in Odisha to deliver groceries across  Asika, Basta, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Dhanekal, Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Talcher within 24 hours. 

However, according to a recent market study, the online grocery services are losing its charm as people have started preferring offline shopping for groceries. Of the 12,207 people surveyed, only 7% favour purchasing of fruits and vegetables online, while 66% prefer local or weekly markets.