Unitus Seed Fund Invests In Bangalore Based M-Commerce Retail Startup Jiffstore

Unitus Seed Fund has invested undisclosed amount in Bangalore-based startup Jiffstore. Jiffstore connects local kirana stores to customers through a mobile app that offers online grocery ordering and home delivery. The new amount of funding will be used to further develop its technology platform and to significantly expand its customer base of small shops.

The startup provides even smallest kirana stores with an easy-to-use mobile-based order management platform to help engage their customers while increasing their sales. The shop owner uses an Android app to interact with customers, manage inventory and other functions, on the other hand by using an iOS or Android app, consumers can easily browse store items, make orders, and optionally have them delivered.

“Building a business to serve lakhs of kirana shops is no small task due to the requirement of maintaining an extremely low cost structure while scaling on-the-ground operations quickly,” said Srikrishna Ramamoorthy, Partner, Unitus Seed Fund. “The diverse experiences of the Jiffstore founding team and their proven ability to get customer traction quickly were key factors in our decision to make this investment.

There are an estimated 1.5 Cr kirana stores and small shops in India that could benefit from mCommerce solutions. “Retail in India is expected set to reach INR 45 lakhs crore by 2015. 92% of the retail market is unorganized – mostly in small shops. We see a fantastic opportunity for a cost-effective mCommerce solution to automate these shops, help them compete, and delight their customers,” said Shameel Abdulla, CEO of Jiffstore.

JiffStore was founded by Aswin Ramachandran, Sandeep Seenath, Satish Basavaraj, and Shameel Abdulla in June 2013. Currently, it is active in number of stores in Bangalore and is witnessing 30% month-over-month order growth rate and will be working to bring new stores in the coming months.

Jiffstore is also one of the startup being mentored at TLabs, a startup accelerator-initiative by Times Internet.

This is Unitus Seed Fund’s third mCommerce investment so far in 2014, previously it has invested in mGaadi and Medypal.