Rural commerce tech platform VilCart raises $18 Mn in Series A round

Bengaluru-based VilCart, a rural-economy-focused technology startup, has raised $18 million in its Series A round led by Asia Impact SA. Nabventures Fund and Texterity Private Limited also participated in the round. 

Entrackr had exclusively reported this development last week. 

With the new investment, VilCart plans to expand its operations to entire South India by 2024. 

Founded in 2018 by Prasanna Kumar and Amith S Mali, VilCart offers a local language mobile app for rural kirana stores and consumers. It also acts as a sourcing, logistics, technology, marketing, and branding partner of rural kirana stores.

The platform helps kirana store owners with better inventory management, and credit management, among other services. 

Currently, VilCart claims to have reached 85,000 Kirana stores in 30,000 villages, covering 29 districts in Karnataka and one in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu 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 spiked 2.3X to Rs 11.13 crore in FY22 from Rs 4.81 crore in the preceding fiscal year.