Organic Farming Startup TBOF Raises ₹ 14.5 Cr from Akshay Kumar, Virendra Sehwag and Other HNIs

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar and former veteran cricketer Virender Sehwag have invested in Pune-based organic farming startup Two Brothers Organic Farms (TBOF). The rural startup has raised Rs 14.5 crore from High Net-worth Individuals including both these celebrities, reported Economic Times and RuralVoice.in. 

The funding will be used to expand TBOF's manufacturing capacity, build farmer training centers and expand its domestic and international business. In addition, the freshly raised funds will help in empowering farmers, creating more employment opportunities for women in villages and improving the lives of villagers. 

Two Brothers Organic Farms (TBOF) is a 23 acre Regenerative Organic Farm, ECOCERT Certified, a biodiverse and self-sustaining natural food system in a small village called Bhodani in Pune district of Maharashtra. The startup claims to have more than 16 thousand farmers are associated with TBOF.

TBOF was started by two brothers — Ajinkya and Satyajit Hange — in 2012. The founders started their careers as bankers post doing their MBA and later decided to join their roots and work in the agricultural sector, leaving corporate jobs. In 2013 they founded TBOF. TBOF has trained more than 16,000 farmers in skilled agriculture over the years. In addition, several initiatives have been taken to explain the importance of organic farming to farmers.

The Founders (Image – TBOF@Twitter) 

TBOF sells products based on a variety of organic and natural elements including a wide range of Cultured A2 ghee, millets and other grains' flour, wood pressed oil and nut butter. TBOF also train and promote farmers for natural and organic farming of fruits, vegetables, grains and pulses. TBOF has grown very rapidly over the years and is associated with thousands of families. Most of its customers are in 53 countries including 1,000 cities in India through e-commerce platform, mobile apps and major food superstores. 

Akshay Kumar said on the investment made in TBOF, “I believe in TBOF's approach and their commitment to empower rural communities through organic farming. I am glad that I am part of all those who are involved in the journey of TBOF to move forward. "

Virendra Sehwag said," After seeing the farming being done by TBOF, I have decided to invest in it. I am excited to support TBOF's mission of sustainable agriculture and rural development. I am glad to see the positive results brought to the lives of the farmers. "

Satyajit Hange, co-founder of TBOF, said, "With the cooperation of investors we will continue to revolutionize organic farming in India and positively impact rural communities."

Earlier in November last year, popular cricketer Ajinkya Rahane announced a seed fund of ₹ 1 crore for agritech startups, in association MCCIA, a trade association based in Maharashtra. 

IIMB’s NSRCEL and Yunus Social Business Fund Join Hands to Support Social Businesses from Rural India

NSRCEL- the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of IIM Bangalore, has signed an MoU with Yunus Social Business Fund Bengaluru (YSBFB), the pioneers in social business financing and scaling.

NSRCEL’s Impact Orbit Incubation Vertical recently launched its first-ever Rural Entrepreneurship Incubation program. The program aims to identify, nurture and scale social innovations in rural India. It is the first foray for NSRCEL to understand the challenges to scale for-profit impact businesses from rural India. NSRCEL will support nine early-stage startups in scaling their revenues through specialised businesses and investment-readiness training through this program. The goal of this incubation program is to support at least 25% of the cohort to double their revenue and to directly impact 500-700 livelihoods, and indirectly benefit 2500-3000 lives.

While NSRCEL is leading the incubation program, YSBFB will facilitate modules on investment readiness, working capital management, and exposure to different forms of funding, including an opportunity for two ventures to raise debt from the fund.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting digitization helped NSRCEL serve entrepreneurs from all over. We also started to see first-time founders moving to rural areas, noticing a local problem or a market opportunity, and innovating for the same. This incubation program is a result of unearthing such ventures with a focus on innovative route-to-market solutions & rural livelihood creation, especially employing local women. We are excited to work with an experienced partner like Yunus Social Business fund Bengaluru (YSBFB), which has worked with such ventures globally in other emerging markets like Kenya, Uganda, Colombia and Brazil. We look forward to having YSBFB team engage with our ventures during our November Bootcamp and ready them for future investments in the impact ecosystem.”- Anand Sri Ganesh, COO, NSRCEL.

“YSBFB has always supported social businesses that intrinsically work with rural populations, creating decentralised livelihood opportunities or enabling access to essential products and services. The Rural Entrepreneurship Program comes at an opportune time to build back a resilient India. YSBFB is thrilled to partner with NSRCEL, which has for the last many years promoted the entrepreneurship movement in India.” -Suresh K Krishna, CEO, YSBFB

Below is the list of selected ventures for incubation-

1. Sahrudaya Foods: Sahrudaya aims to bring regional rural recipes which are tasty as well as healthy to your doorstep.
2. Resham Dor: Resham Dor's vision is to revive diminishing craft clusters across India and establish artisans as custodians of their craft.
3. Kulture Street: Aimed towards building a brand that provides skilled Indian artisans a larger market access (online/offline) and a community of loyal customers that love Indian handmade products, across the globe.
4. Kalapuri: Kalapuri embraces artisan communities by giving new opportunities, developing artisans into independent entrepreneurs, training and developing artisan communities and providing global market through Kalapuri platform.
5. IVillage Social Solutions: IVillage aims to address the problem of migration of workforce from rural to urban areas by training rural women to manufacture high quality hand-made products and machine-based stitching processes thus giving them an opportunity to be financially independent.
6. Indian Yards: Indian Yards up-skills women from the communities in the Nilgiris to become fine macrame artisans and subsequently enables them towards becoming an independent producer group.
7. ForSarees: ForSarees is a for-profit social enterprise working with rural artisans, with a vison to revive and popularize indigenous weaves.
8. Bastar se Bazar Tak: Based in Bastar, the organization is working towards improving the livelihoods of tribal farmers through non-timber forest produce.
9. Ayang: Ayang Trust's Livelihood program provides training and market access to farmers in the north-east to help increase productivity and income.

Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) Launched To Support Entrepreneurs in Villages

Photo by Néstor Morales on Unsplash

National Institute of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development (NIESBUD), a premier organization of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) to develop a sustainable model for promoting entrepreneurship at the grass roots by initiating the Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP).

SVEP  aims to support entrepreneurs in rural areas to set-up enterprises at the village-level in non-agricultural sectors. The partnership will enable the rural community by helping them set up their trades and provide complete support till they are stabilized. This pragmatic intervention will provide knowledge, advisory and financial support to the public and will help create village-level community cadre.

NIESBUD is an autonomous organization engaged in training, consultancy, research, etc. in order to promote entrepreneurship and Skill Development. 

Under the partnership of NIESBUD and MoRD, rural entrepreneurs will be able to access banking systems for receiving financial support for starting their enterprises, including support from MUDRA bank. Integrated ICT techniques and tools will also be provided for training and capacity building along with enterprise advisory services to augment the entrepreneurship ecosystem in India’s villages. 

Newly launched SVEP program will benefit the Self-Help Group (SHG) ecosystem of DAY-NRLM and the scheme not only supports existing enterprises but new enterprises as well.

In September last year, MSDE had announced its plans for implementing a project on entrepreneurship promotion and mentoring of micro and small enterprises in 6 temple towns of Puri, Varanasi, Haridwar, Kollur, Pandharpur and Bodh Gaya, to tap the entrepreneurial potential of first generation entrepreneurs, educated unemployed youth, school/college dropouts, women, youth from backward community etc.

On the partnership, Shri Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development & Entreprenuership said that the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has highlighted that Indians should dream of becoming job creators from job seekers and in this regard, SVEP will help create an innovative ecosystem, accelerating economic and social gains at the community level. He informed that the scheme also aims at building an inclusive society by providing equal opportunities to all along with the required financial support. Shri Aggarwal highlighted that India is a land of opportunities and by helping our youth access these prospects, we are catering to their aspirations. 

He expressed his confidence that this partnership will help in training the rural community and will provide them with necessary resources for entrepreneurship to increase their income and will pave the way for building Aatmanirbhar Bharat.

Shri Aggarwal stressed that rural entrepreneurship can play a significant role in the overall economic development of India and a huge number of employment opportunities can be generated because of the rural entrepreneurship for the people who are living in rural or remote geographies. The old-age artistic heritage has also been conserved by protecting as well as promoting the rural entrepreneurship, he added. He informed that from past few years, Skill India has been working persistently to bridge the skill gap by giving entrepreneurs easy access to funding, providing the right mentorship, and improving ease of doing business in the country.

Jaipur-based Frontier Markets Raises $2.25 Mn in Funding led by ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies, The Rise Fund, and The Singh Family Trusts

Jaipur-based last mile rural distribution startup, Frontier Markets announced that it has raised $2.25 million pre-series A financing led by ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies, The Rise Fund, and The Singh Family Trusts (advised by Artha Impact), along with Teja Ventures and affiliates of Beyond Capital Fund.

Frontier Markets is a last mile assisted e-commerce and distribution company that leverages its network of tech-enabled women agents to market, sell and service products and services across rural India. The current investment will drive the company’s assisted e-commerce platform to the next level, adding digital marketing tools, AI enabled digital training, and a B2C solution onboarding their rural customers directly on their digital platform. The company will leverage its B2B2C e-commerce to drive digital and physical services to rural customers and become the primary income source for rural women.

165 million rural households do not have access to life-improving products and digital services. Product and service companies have not invested in brick-and-mortar infrastructure, and mainstream e-commerce platforms have not built the distribution infrastructure to reach these customers—despite widespread smartphone ownership and 4G connectivity. With limited mobility, rural women do not get to participate in product purchasing decisions – a need gap that Frontier Markets is trying to address by developing a high tech-touch platform to ensure local connect with rural customers through women entrepreneurs, curated product basket of solutions, local delivery and after-sales services, all managed through a digital platform for real-time tracking of services, customer satisfaction, and insights to track their impact and new opportunities. 

Founded in 2011 by Ajaita Shah, Frontier Markets started as a clean energy access firm delivering solutions in lighting and appliances to rural households in Rajasthan. Since then, the company has pivoted to an inclusive products and digital service platform driving doorstep deliveries of appliances, agriculture, energy, and digital services with their network of women entrepreneurs to become an all-in-one market place for rural consumers. They have also developed a hybrid offline-online solution harnessing an on-the-ground presence with its consumer service centers, delivery team, and entrepreneurs all digitized to deliver real-time services, and value to the last mile. Today, Frontier Markets has over 4,000 women entrepreneurs who are tech-enabled using its proprietary assisted-e commerce platform to deliver over 1 million products and services to 700,000 rural customers in Rajasthan, UP, and Bihar. The company is associated with several partners including Samsung, Crompton, HUL, Eko India Financial Services, and more to curate products based on data insights collected through their tech platform.

In response to COVID-19, Frontier Markets launched doorstep delivery of essential goods and digital banking services as a response to the challenges presented by limited access to supplies in rural India. This funding round demonstrates the continued confidence of investors in the company’s business model.

Speaking on the announcement, Ajaita Shah, Founder and CEO of Frontier Markets said, “Prior to COVID-19, Frontier Markets invested in a technology platform that leveraged data to deliver a wider range of products and services in energy, finance, connectivity, agriculture and more to the last mile consumer, digitally onboarding all of our agent network. Today, we have added essential products and services—from food to protective gear to mobile banking, recognizing that our customers trust us and want us to deliver all solutions to them through our platform. We have a unique opportunity to drive innovative partnerships with digital service companies who are keen to access rural customers, as well as governments who want to add value to their constituents through women entrepreneurs. We will leverage on this experience to deliver future growth and scale throughout India with women at the center of the value chain.”

Ajaita Shah, Founder, Frontier Markets

Lead Investor Anne Chassagnette, Managing Director of ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies’s commented, “The swift adjustment of Frontier Markets’ organization to the COVID-19 crisis and its ability to leverage its innovative tech platform to address the essential needs of rural population on short notice confirm our full support and our trust in its trailblazing business model. This is fully in line with our objective to promote shared and sustainable growth for all thanks to sustainable business solutions.”

“We have always believed in the transformative role of technology and data in scaling outreach and fulfilment of underserved consumers.  Post-covid, what was “socially good” has now become essential and urgent – Frontier Markets is leveraging upon the untapped opportunity of 900 million rural consumers through rapid expansion of its technology platform and its network of digitally enabled women micro entrepreneurs,” remarked Virginia Tan, Founding Partner, Teja Ventures.

Frontier Markets envisions India’s first B2B2C rural platform to drive services to rural customers nationally. By 2025, the company plans to grow to 1 million rural women entrepreneurs serving 100 million consumers with all types of products and services relating to agriculture, Insurance and environment to drive economic empowerment in Bharat India. Thereby, making it the largest rural platform for product companies, service providers and more.

Apex body for Rural Development to Host Rural Innovators Startup Conclave in September

The National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR) would host the 3rd edition of Rural Innovators Startup Conclave (RISC) on September 27-28 at the Institute campus at Rajendranagar Hyderabad.

The two-day conclave would serve as a platform to showcase a wide array of budding entrepreneurs, rural innovators and aspirant startups to demonstrate their design ideas, innovations, technologies, pitch, and get an opportunity to receive learning and mentoring support, the
NIRDPR said in a release.

Being introduced in the memory of late President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, RISC-2019 seeks to provide a platform to innovators and entrepreneurs to showcase their innovations and connect them with potential funding and network support, it said.

The themes of the conclave are Agriculture & Allied Activities, Green Energy Solution, Waste to Wealth, Health & Elderly Care, Drinking Water & Sanitation, Sustainable Housing, and Sustainable Livelihood, it said.

[blockquote footer=""]The best innovations and startups identified on the occasion would be awarded cash prizes of one lakh rupees for startups and fifty thousand rupees for innovators, besides a fellowship for one-year to participate in tailor-made workshops on themes such as design, packaging, marketing, to be organized by NIRDPR.[/blockquote]

"Humongous problems which are plaguing the rural areas can only be addressed by constant infusion of innovations and technologies focused on mitigating these issues.

The RISC programme aims to provide critical support to innovators from rural areas who know these issues better than anyone else to work towards addressing these challenges," W R Reddy, Director General, NIRDPR,said. PTI SJR

EDII to Create 12,000+ Rural Enterprises in Orissa under Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP)

Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), an acknowledged national resource Institute for Entrepreneurship Education, Research, Training and Institution Building will generated over 12,000 rural enterprises under Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) in Orissa (Odisha) over a span of four years.

EDII is the National Resource Organisation for Startup Village Entrepreneurship Program. The Institute is implementing this program in eight blocks of Odisha, has trained and supported around 3,500 enterprises under this project.

SVEP is a sub-scheme of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development. The main objective of the programme is to stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty & unemployment in the villages by helping start rural enterprises. The eight blocks in Odisha are Ranpur of Nayagarh, Morada of Mayurbhanja, Mahakalapada of Kendrapara, Puri Sadar of Puri, Angul Sadar of Angul, Kuarmunda of Sundergarh, Umerkote of Nabarangpur and Danagadi of Jajpur district. Among the eight blocks the former two blocks Ranpur and Moroda were piloted in the first phase (2016-17) and based on their performance 6 more blocks were added in the later stage (2017-18). This project is being implemented in collaboration with the Odisha Livelihoods Missions (OLM).

Professor Rajesh Gupta, Faculty, EDII and Head-SVEP Programme, said, “Under the long-term vision of SVEP, the Government of India aims to start and support rural enterprises, thereby providing employment opportunity to rural people and help them come out of poverty; while simultaneously resolving the issue of immigration. The entrepreneurs are provided skill training, support in maintaining books of records and credit and market linkages through a cadre of resource persons, these resource persons are village youth who along with the community leaders and community organisations ensure sustained support to the SVEP entrepreneurs at the villages”.

SVEP was approved during 2015-16 and the enterprise formation started in 2017-18. As on 30th November 2018, a total of 30,352 enterprises were formed across 20 States where the scheme is operational. Skill building support is provided to all the entrepreneurs supported under Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme through Community Resource Persons for Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EP).

For the 1st Time, India's 36-Yr-Old NABARD Bank Launches $100 Mn VC Fund for Agri & Rural Startups

India's apex development financial institution owned by the government, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), has launched ₹ 700 crore ( ~ US $100 million) venture capital fund for equity investments in agriculture and rural -focused startups.

Established in July 1982 and fully owned by Government of India, NABARD has been contributing to other funds till now and this is the first time that NABARD, through its subsidiary 'NabVentures', has launched a fund of its own, reported Business Line.

The VC fund, which already had its first close, will be used for investing across startups engaged in agriculture, food and rural development space.

Launched in January this year as a separate subsidiary of NABARD to support start-ups, NabVentures has a proposed corpus of Rs 500 crore with an option to retain over-subscriptions of Rs 200 crore, called as the greenshoe option or "over-allotment option".

Nabventures is now scouting for equity investments in asset-light, innovative, technology-led start-ups in its focus areas

For its first close, the details of the investments done by NABARAD and other limited partners were not idisclosed yet.

NABARD chairman, Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, said,"The fund will have a high impact as it will provide a boost to investment ecosystem in the core areas of agriculture, food and improvement of rural livelihoods."

In India, more than 50% of the rural credit is disbursed by the Co-operative Banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and NABARD is responsible for regulating and supervising the functions of Co-operative banks and RRBs. NABARD also provides recommendations to Reserve Bank of India on issue of licenses to Cooperative Banks, opening of new branches by State Co-operative Banks and RRBs.

Regarding NABARD's contribution in Indian startup ecosystem, the bank has contributed Rs 273 crore to 16 alternate investment funds. Aavishkaar Bharat Fund, which had invested ₹40 crore in GoBOLT, a Gurgaon-based logistic tech startup, is backed by NABARD among other investors.

Karnataka To Create Legal Framework for Startups and Offer ₹50 Lakh Grant for Social Startups

Priyank Kharge, the minister for social welfare of Karnataka state, has said that the state government is currently focussing on to have an "innovation legal framework" for startups in the state to address the problem of no proper legal guidelines for startups operating in the state. The problem was with the government’s inability to move fast enough with changes," said Kharge, who was earlier holding portfolio of IT and Bio-Tech, Science & Technology Department, in the previous Karnataka state government.

Explaining the dire need for legal framework, Kharge cited an example of RedBus saying that, "RedBus today are actually operating illegally, as the government has no legal framework for them".

It is to noted that this is not the first time Kharge has discussed this problem as in March this year Kharge, at that time too, had spoken about making a legal framework to help startups struggling with government regulations. Its just that, at that time Kharge, instead of RedBus cited an example of startups like Uber and Ola, which -- in 2016 -- had to temporarily stop their cab operations in Bengaluru until they obtained the required ‘cab aggregator’ licenses from the transport department.

“Our focus is to have an innovation legal framework in Karnataka. We can all agree that government policies are constantly having to play catch up. Even abroad, Uber had problems in Spain; they stopped their services in London; they had issues in Chicago; they exited China. The No.1 reason is because of policy - there was no such thing as aggregating taxis before,” Kharge said at the Shell Energy Entrepreneurship Conference 2018 in Bengaluru.

“Right now look at Red-Bus -- the way they are operating, there are no specific guidelines for them, no policy. It is actually illegal. We have a very redundant Motor Vehicles Act. So technically there is no policy for carpooling, for aggregating. Policies are playing catch up with technology and hence we are coming up with an innovation legal framework,” he said.

Any new innovation requires a policy intervention, said the minister. “Whether it is for RedBus, Uber or whether it is for an ecommerce company like Amazon or Flipkart. We don’t intend to stop any innovation that is happening. They will be given time and enough elbow room to function as a company. We don’t even look to regulate them immediately, but we look at these ideas having a legal framework so that they can grow exponentially,” Kharge said.

The minister said Karnataka has the fourth best R&D ecosystem in the world and the best in India, with more than 400 R&D centres in the state. “We also have the youngest startup ecosystem in the world, where the average age of founders is 26 years.

Additionally, Kharge also announced that the Karnataka government would grant Rs 50 lakh to startups that have a strong social focus and are working for rural development in the state. Moreover, the state govt. also intends to adopt a startup currently being incubated in Shell E4 for piloting as part of his department’s efforts related to manual scavenging.

In March, Kharge, under different ministerial portfolio, launched Start-up Policy and a new entrepreneurship scheme, under which Rs 30,000 per month would be provided to any entrepreneur for a year while they incubate their idea with Karnataka's startup cell.

"To encourage any innovation that will be focused at rural development and well-being with a strong social impact, my department will be willing to support startups across the state with a grant of Rs 50 lakh," announced Kharge on the sidelines of the conference organised by Shell E4.

Shell E4 (Energizing and Enabling Energy Entrepreneurs) programme aims to foster a vibrant ecosystem of energy entrepreneurs by bringing together talent, technology, capital and know-how to accelerate India's transition towards a sustainable energy future.

Launched in 2017, Shell E4 Hub is located in the Shell Technology Centre Bangalore, which provides start-ups with round-the-clock proximity to Shell subject matter expert.

Earlier this year, Shell selected five startups - Detect Technologies, ION Energy, IoTrek, Trashcon and Ossus Biorenewables that are working on a diverse range of solution.

Content sourced from Times of India.

[Top Image - DeccanChronicle.com]

Chennai-based Inthree Access Raises $4 Mn in Funding from Ventureast, Orios Venture and IAN Fund

Chennai-based Inthree Access, a rural area-focussed marketing, retailing and distribution firm, has raised $4 million in a Series A funding led by Ventureast, which also saw participation from Orios Venture Partners and the IAN Fund.

The startup will use the freshly raised capital to strengthen its technology backbone, enhance capabilities in last mile logistics and deepen its penetration in the 10 states where it operates.

Founded in 2013, by Ramachandran Ramanathan, Karthik Natarajan and Narayanan, Inthree is an mpact venture that focuses on achieving the triple goals of rural distribution, rural project implementation and rural consultancy by offering last mile distribution and expertise in working in rural markets. Inthree claims to be the safest bet to reach the farthest towns and villages in the hinterland and is a great channel to distribute products and services of immense social value to lower income groups.

Inthree also operate an e-commerce venture exclusively for rural areas called Boonbox. In September last year, Boonbox raised an undisclosed amount in pre series A round from a group of investors including Keiretsu Forum and existing investors Indian Angel Network.

Through Boobox, the company claims to have sold more than 1.5 million durable goods to more than one million households.

In a statement a business daily, co-Founders Ramanathan, Karthik and Narayanan said, "Inthree has always focused on providing the most appropriate products, backed by home delivery (irrespective of distance) and top class after-sales service. We are delighted to be funded by some of the best names in the industry and plan to utilize the funds to increase scale and strengthen our backend capabilities to delight our customers."

Rohan Dedhia, Assistant Vice President, Orios Venture says, “Boonbox is building a technology enabled commerce platform for Bharat, the next 500mn consumers in India, that hail from the smallest towns and villages in India. The company has a vision to own this ecosystem: sales, financing, logistics and service, that is currently missing in these regions. We believe that, just like in other areas like content, technology enabled commerce in India will be driven by models made for vernacular speakers. The company's growth so far, is a testament to this."

Last month, Orios Venture Partners had also participated in the funding round of Jaipur-based B2B wholesale e-commerce venture Wholesalebox.

About Ventureast, it is a two-decade-old firm investing since 1997 and has about $325 million in assets under management. The investment firm, touted as one of India's longest standing venture capital firms, has made more than 100 investments so far. It had also invested in Little Eye Labs, a tool for app developers which was later got acquired by Facebook.

Source - Economic Times

[Top Image - R. Ramanathan, Founder, Inthree Access | Via - Indianonlineseller.com]

Chennai-based Inthree Access Raises $4 Mn in Funding from Ventureast, Orios Venture and IAN Fund

Chennai-based Inthree Access, a rural area-focussed marketing, retailing and distribution firm, has raised $4 million in a Series A funding led by Ventureast, which also saw participation from Orios Venture Partners and the IAN Fund.

The startup will use the freshly raised capital to strengthen its technology backbone, enhance capabilities in last mile logistics and deepen its penetration in the 10 states where it operates.

Founded in 2013, by Ramachandran Ramanathan, Karthik Natarajan and Narayanan, Inthree is an mpact venture that focuses on achieving the triple goals of rural distribution, rural project implementation and rural consultancy by offering last mile distribution and expertise in working in rural markets. Inthree claims to be the safest bet to reach the farthest towns and villages in the hinterland and is a great channel to distribute products and services of immense social value to lower income groups.

Inthree also operate an e-commerce venture exclusively for rural areas called Boonbox. In September last year, Boonbox raised an undisclosed amount in pre series A round from a group of investors including Keiretsu Forum and existing investors Indian Angel Network.

Through Boobox, the company claims to have sold more than 1.5 million durable goods to more than one million households.

In a statement a business daily, co-Founders Ramanathan, Karthik and Narayanan said, "Inthree has always focused on providing the most appropriate products, backed by home delivery (irrespective of distance) and top class after-sales service. We are delighted to be funded by some of the best names in the industry and plan to utilize the funds to increase scale and strengthen our backend capabilities to delight our customers."

Rohan Dedhia, Assistant Vice President, Orios Venture says, “Boonbox is building a technology enabled commerce platform for Bharat, the next 500mn consumers in India, that hail from the smallest towns and villages in India. The company has a vision to own this ecosystem: sales, financing, logistics and service, that is currently missing in these regions. We believe that, just like in other areas like content, technology enabled commerce in India will be driven by models made for vernacular speakers. The company's growth so far, is a testament to this."

Last month, Orios Venture Partners had also participated in the funding round of Jaipur-based B2B wholesale e-commerce venture Wholesalebox.

About Ventureast, it is a two-decade-old firm investing since 1997 and has about $325 million in assets under management. The investment firm, touted as one of India's longest standing venture capital firms, has made more than 100 investments so far. It had also invested in Little Eye Labs, a tool for app developers which was later got acquired by Facebook.

Source - Economic Times

[Top Image - R. Ramanathan, Founder, Inthree Access | Via - Indianonlineseller.com]