Veg Route, Chennai-based agritech startup, has raised $1.1 million in Seed funding round, led by VGROW Ventures from US. The round also witnessed participation from Ravi Shankar Kathirvelu (chief business officer and investor), Mohan K and Jai Kumar (founders of fintech startup, Ippopay), Hari TN (co-founder, Artha School of Entrepreneurship) and Abhishek Raj Pandey (head of commercial operations, Mamaearth) among other angel investors of India and US. The fund raised will be used to enhance tech and data-driven solutions for strengthening and revolutionizing the fresh produce supply chain which connects farmers and consumers, along with plans to establish cold stored warehouses and invest in e-vehicles for last mile delivery operations and also extended support to farmers by establishing collection centers in smaller towns and villages of south India.
"Helping farmers to sell their fresh produce at the right pricing and helping people from all walks of life to become our consumers by ensuring best quality, right pricing, timely delivery will make us expand and connect with more than 50,000 farmers to about 2.5 lakh consumers per day in over 100 cities by 2025," said Shyam Prashad Rajasekaran, CEO, Veg Route.
Founded in 2020, Veg Route is an online delivery platform that offers freshly handpicked fresh produce from farms right to your doorsteps in over 5 cities across tier II and tier III towns of India, headquartered in Chennai.
"The market is big and current solutions are all suboptimal. There is a huge opportunity to significantly enhance customer experience with a razor-sharp focus on this one category, namely F&V. I like the founder's grounded yet ambitious personality that is ethical yet extremely hungry to create an impact," Hari TN, co-founder, Artha School of Entrepreneurship.