Craftsvilla Looks To Disrupt The Ethnic Food Space; Acquires PlaceofOrigin.in

Mumbai-based ethnic etailer, Craftsvilla, has acquired PlaceofOrigin.in, a Bangalore-based online gourmet food marketplace. This was an all equity deal and the amount of deal has been left undisclosed..

Speaking on the development, Manoj Gupta, co-founder & CEO of Craftsvilla, said, “We believe that ethnic foods is as big a category as ethnicwear with upwards of INR 50,000 Cr. market size and we are looking at ethnic foods as another frontier of growth in ethnic space. Ethnic foods category is very unique with lots of regional variety and is very unstructured. Placeoforigin has been working in this category for last two years and has been able to bring lot of regional varieties online and address key logistics challenges in this space. We look forward to utilizing their experience and our reach to make this a huge category of Craftsvilla.”

Founded in 2014 by Pradeep Ponnadi, Sudarsan Metla Srihari and Ashish Nichani, PlaceofOrigin, is a curated marketplace that helps consumers discover and access specialty food products from across the country. The company leverages its technology to give iconic local producers access to the national marketplace.

Since inception, the startup has scaled up their operational footprint to service vendors and customers from across 20 states of India.

“We believe there is an online demand potential of $5 Bn which is waiting to be tapped. We are excited to work with Manoj and disrupt the specialty food market, thereby providing genuine value & happiness to consumers and producers alike”, said the co-founders of PlaceofOrigin.in.

Recently, craftsvilla.com also acquired logistics service provider Sennd.

Both the acquisitions are in line with craftsvilla’s vision to build a one-stop destination for consumers to buy everything ethnic.

Craftsvilla was founded by Manoj and Monica Gupta in 2011. It had raised about $34 Mn in Series C and $16 Mn in Series B last year, and prior to that it had raised $15 Mn in 2012 in Series A. It counts Sequoia India, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Global Founders Capital and Apoletto among its investors.

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