Karnataka-based fresh fruits and vegetables etailer Freshboxx has acquired Hubli-based last mile logistics startup, Urmajesty. Post the acquisition, Urmajesty co-founders Pavan Patil and Nihal Revankar will join Freshboxx’s team as Head of B2C and Head of logistics dept, respectively.
With this acquisition, the startup aims to multiply its revenue by starting business operations in South Karnataka while launching in new cities of North Karnataka.
Launched in December 2015 by Rohan Kulkarni, Freshboxx is incubated at Sandbox Startups – a unit of the Deshpande Foundation. It has been mentored by C. M. Patil, Chief Executive of Sandbox Startups and Naveen Jha, CEO of Deshpande Foundation. Freshboxx enables farmers sell their produce directly to retail shops, restaurants and individual customers.
The company claims to to be the first ecommerce fruit & vegetable platform in Hubli and boasts of having figured out positive unit economics within nine months of operations.
In another development, hyperlocal industry expert, Archana Pawar Saxena has joined Freshboxx’s team as a co-founder and Head of B2B modern retail segment. Archana was previously associated with Bucketkart, a Bengaluru-based hyper-local B2C grocery startup. Freshboxx has also appointed Avinash Shinde as Head of the B2B department.
With the new team in place, it plans to expand its F&V services in Bengaluru, Bagalkot, Gadag, Karwar, and Belgaum starting from the 3rd and 4th week of December.
The company currently has a network of more than 1,000 farmers having more than 12,000 acres of land bank. These are predominantly progressive farmers which means that as and when Freshboxx.in expands in any part of the country, the farmer network will be handy to cater its needs.
The portal also provides data feeds to these farmers about which crop to be grown where and when to grow – to get the optimal price from the market. It is working with farm produce organisations & NGOs to have an effective supply-chain process and increase the income & productivity of the farmer.
Earlier this year, in September 2016, Freshboxx secured an undisclosed amount of angel funding from entrepreneur and angel investor, Ravi Linganuri.
In October 2016, online B2B marketplace Bharat Bazaar raised an undisclosed amount of Seed funding from BeeNext, TV Mohandas Pai, Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon (FreeCharge co-founders). Prior to that in July 2016, Delhi-based fresh fruit and vegetable supply chain startup Lemon Leaf raised $133K (INR 90 lakhs) in first external round of funding. The investment was secured from angel investors, Saurabh Sahni and Tushar Gupta, owner of Daily Delite Super Market.
