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Indore-headquartered business-to-business (B2B) platform for procurement of inventory by kirana stores, ShopKirana , which has rebranded to Direct, has announced raising $38 million in a Series C round of funding.

The round was led by Oman India Joint Investment Fund, Sixth Sense Ventures, and returning investor Info Edge. Other participants in the round include venture debt firm Trifecta, Gunosy Capital, Ajanta LLP, 9Unicorns, and returning investors Incubate Fund, Akatsuki and others.

The company will utilise the capital to expand to nearly 30 cities over the next year and a half. 

Prior to this, ShopKirana had raised $10 million in a Series B round from Info Edge, Incubate Fund, and others in August 2019. With the current round, the startup has raised a total of $50 million in equity capital and was valued at nearly $150 million in the current round. 

“The Shopkirana team has been very impressive in their rapid scale-up and capital efficiency. Their deep understanding of the business has made them the partner of choice for many reputed FMCG brands,” said Sanjeev Bikchandani, Founder and Executive Vice Chairman of Info Edge, in a statement issued by the company.

“ShopKirana possesses the key tenets for a successful company. Large addressable market – $500 billion market poised for disruption, highly motivated promoters, capital-efficient business model and a great product-market fit – serving the need of kirana shop owners and their suppliers (FMCG brands and others) thus laying a strong foundation for a long term competitive edge,” said Srinath Srinivasan, CEO at Oman India Joint Investment Fund Management Company, in the statement.

Founded in May 2015 by former P&G executives Sumit Ghorawat and Deepak Dhanotiya and serial entrepreneur Tanutejas Saraswat, ShopKirana connects small retailers and kirana store owners in Tier II cities with FMCG brands for procurement.

The platform helps in one-stop procurement and uses technology to ensure timely delivery and payment for stocks. It provides the brands with trends in retail markets, heat maps and other meaningful insights for high Average Order Value and retention and digital reach.

At present ShopKirana works with a network of 50,000 retailers across eight cities in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. 

“Brands pay us for analytics, go-to-market, branding, analytics apart from the commission on sales made on our platform. We are providing a got-to-market platform for the brands,” Sumit Ghorawat, Co-founder at ShopKirana, told YS. 

The platform does not charge the kirana partners for logistics or delivery.

ShopKirana competes in a space that has well-capitalised incumbents like Reliance’s Jio Platforms Limited, Flipkart’s B2B vertical Flipkart Wholesale, B2B trade platform and startup unicorn Udaan, among others.