Exclusive: Crofarm enters B2B2C biz with Otipy; raises fresh capital

Farm to retail agritech startup, Crofarm, has entered business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) space after its four years of operations. The Gurugram-based firm has launched - Otipy - a community-based platform to connect consumers, resellers and farmers for bringing fresh produce to doorstep. 

The new product will work on a social commerce model, where the company will deliver the products to resellers, who will handle the last-mile delivery and can earn a healthy commission.

Crofarm has been testing the social commerce model from the past couple of months and is already serving over 50,000 consumers through a network of more than 500 resellers partners. As compared to existing social selling models for grocery and fashion, Otipy claims to operate at 35% gross margin and empowering communities - women (demand side) who can make Rs 20,000-60,000 per month.

“Crofarm is targeting the large market with a broken supply chain but a scalable demand led-model. Globally, Chinese e-commerce platform Xingsheng Youxuan has championed the model while the Chilibeli is mirroring the social commerce format with a decent scale,” said Varun Khurana co-founder and CEO of Crofarm.

For unaware, Crofarm supplies fruits and vegetables to over 5000 plus retailers, which is sourced from farmers across Haryana, UP, Delhi, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra.

Crofarm has also raised a $1 million fresh financing round led by Smile Group, said Khurana. According to regulatory filings, Crofarm has raised Rs 14.5 crore since its Rs 3.8 crore bridge round in early January. In a fresh tranche, the company has raised Rs 5 crore from Bytez Ventures,  Manish Vij (via Smile Group) and Wong Kok Wai. 

At the beginning of this year, Crofarm had raked in $500K from a clutch of HNIs including Vinay Mittal, former Chief of Strategy at HT Media, Ramit Sethi from Strongbox Ventures and others.

Ninjacart, a competitor of Crofarm, is also trying to build a platform to leverage its supply chain to deliver products directly to consumers. However, it appears to be a temporary arrangement for the lockdown period. 

In its core business, Crofarm competes with the Walmart-backed company and Waycool. The Chennai-based firm had raised $32 million round led by Lightbox Ventures. Entrackr had exclusively reported about Lightbox leading a new round in Waycool in December last year.