Exclusive: Rural commerce startup VilCart raises Series A round

Rural commerce startup VilCart has raised $13 million in a Series A round led by Asia Impact with the participation of Nabventure Fund and Texterity Private Limited. With this, the company has marked its first fundraise in 2023.

The board at VilCart has passed a special resolution to issue 68,761 Series A and 405 Series A1 compulsory convertible preference shares (CCPS) at an issue price of Rs 15,411.6 per share to raise Rs 106.6 crore or around $13 million, the company’s regulatory filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) shows.

The company will utilize the funds for the purpose of operations and business development, it added in the filing.

Asia Impact has spearheaded the funding round with Rs 91.96 crore followed by Nabventure Fund - a agri, food & rural focused fund started by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) which poured in Rs 14 crore. Texterity Private Limited also joined the round and infused Rs 62 lakh.

As per Fintrackr’s estimates, the company has been valued at around Rs 378 crore or $46 million (post-money). VilCart has raised over $15 million to date including a Seed round of Rs 15 crore in November 2021.

The company has also passed a resolution to convert the unsecured loan of Test Yantra Software Solutions (India) into 7,786 equity shares amounting to Rs 12 crore.

Founded in 2018, VilCart is a tech enabled rural to rural supply chain which helps village kirana stores easily procure inventory, and manage logistics and supply chains by the way of connecting farmer produce organizations, brands, rural SMEs, and manufacturers directly to kirana stores.

Post allotment of the financing round, Asia Impact holds 31.28% shares of VilCart while NabVentures owns 12.36% stake. Texterity Private Limited and Test Yantra Software Solutions command 0.17% and 3.18% stakes respectively.

VilCart registered a 2.6X growth in scale to Rs 209.7 crore during FY22 as compared to Rs 79 crore in FY21. As per the annual financial statement with the RoC, the company’s losses also blew 2.3X to Rs 11.13 crore in FY22 from Rs 4.81 crore in the preceding fiscal year.

As per a media report, VilCart eying profitability in the ongoing fiscal year (FY23) and targeting Rs 12,000 crore turnover in the coming three years.

VilCart competes with the likes of Jai Kisan, Hesa, and Fasal.