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SuperK plans to utilise this fund for expansion, building a strong team and brand, enhancing technology and supply chain infrastructure

The mobile-first startup has developed an integrated software system that connects warehouses, stores and suppliers

Over the past year, SuperK has claimed to co-create close to 50 stores across 20 towns of Kadapa and Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district and served over 1 Lakh families

Kadapa-based SuperK, a tech-enabled franchised grocery retailer for small towns, has secured $5.5 Mn in a Pre-Series A round led by Binny Bansal-backed 021 Capital with participation from other investors.

The investors who participated in the round include Curefoods founder Ankit Nagori, Razorpay founders’ Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar investment fund–MarsShot Ventures, Blume Founders Fund, xto10x cofounder and CEO Saikiran Krishnamurthy, Ula founder and CEO Nipun Mehra and public market investor Ashish Kacholia (public market investor), according to a report by TOI.

SuperK would utilise this fundraise for expansion, building a strong team and brand, enhancing technology and supply chain infrastructure. Besides, the startup plans to hire across sales and marketing, tech and product, analytics and data science roles to fuel its expansion.

Founded in 2019 by Neeraj Menta and Anil Thontepu, batchmates from BITS Pilani, SuperK plans to scale rapidly and reach more than 200 stores across over 120 towns in Andhra Pradesh by the end of next year. 

It rebrands existing small-format stores with SuperK branding and helps them with standardised pricing, discounts, cashback and digital billing, along with a wider range of products. 

SuperK manages procurement and merchandising for all the physical stores through a standard operating plan. It claims a $5 Mn ARR for FY23, with earnings commission from sales margin, franchise fees and brand partnerships, as per a report by Inc42.

Meanwhile, SuperK raised INR 6 Cr last year in seed funding led by Strive VC to use the fund to expand infrastructure, improve technology and hire talent.

SuperK directly competes with 1K Kirana Bazaar that raised $7 Mn in a Series A funding round last year in August; Shoopy that bagged $250,000 in seed funding in March 2021, and Gully Network that secured a $1.2 Mn Pre-Series A funding in 2020.  

Online Retail On A Growth Trajectory

The market size of the online retail industry in India is estimated to be about $60 Bn in 2020 and it has witnessed an upward trend for the past two years in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic. The online retail industry was forecasted to reach $73 Bn by end of 2022, as per a report by Statista Research.

The rapid expansion in the size of online retail could be attributed to the increase in the market size of e-retail, a favorable government policy of 100% FDI flows into the retail sector, and an increasing base of digital buyers in India. 

The market size of the retail industry is estimated to reach $200 Bn by 2027, a massive jump. Additionally, the number of digital buyers in the country has been on the rise since 2014. 

Affordable mobile internet, mainly from Reliance’s Jio has been a catalyst for change and led to a drastic growth in the value of mobile retail ecommerce in 2020-21.

Further, the pandemic induced lockdown has spurred the growth of domestic ecommerce industry in India.