Bengaluru-based B2B marketplace for grocery and food items Jumbotail recently raised $85 million in its Series C round of funding led by Artal Asia Pte. Ltd. Ajax Capital also participated in the round, a combination of primary and secondary investments.
Ashish Jhina, Co-founder and COO, Jumbotail, said, raising money has always been a means to an end for the company.
“Money is required to allow us to achieve the mission that we set out on until we are a profitable company,” he said, adding that becoming profitable and growing in a sustainable manner is “one of the biggest targets for the company”.
The fundraise round is also a good validation of the “hard work that the team has put in through the pandemic”.
Ashish said the journey of Jumbotail had two stages. The first stage was all about proving the model, and figuring it out at a relatively smaller scale in Karnataka. The second stage started in the beginning of 2021, with quick growth and expansion across the entire country.
“We have gone from being in two cities at the beginning of the year to about 38 cities. Scale has grown about 3-4X, whichever dimensions that you look at,” he said.
Ashish Jhina, Co-founder and COO, Jumbotail
Jumbotail’s goal is to continue on that growth trajectory and accelerate that. To achieve this, the fundraise will be utilised to expand into more cities, scale up the team, and double down on finance, market, category management, product, and portfolio of stores.
“It’s really all about expanding the business, continuing the acceleration of the growth that we’ve embarked on in the last year,” the co-founder said.
Ashish said some of the things that Jumbotail as a company measured were number of customers on the platform and number of cities served. At present, about 150,000 customers from 38 different cities were being served. The company also focuses on “stickiness” and is planning to “double the growth metrics”.
Jumbotail currently has 2,000 brands and sellers on the marketplace, and 150,000 retailers who buy from the marketplace. The idea is to get to half a million retailers and significantly increase the number of sellers.
Apart from that, they plan to “deepen their partnerships with brands and help regional and smaller brands scale up on the platform”. Jumbotail is also planning geographic expansion and aims to reach 100 cities over the next year.
Commenting on acquisitions, Ashish said it’s not something that Jumbotail has done before but it’s something that they were open to looking at. He added that a bunch of things were lined up in terms of revenue targets and announcements would be made over the next few months.
