Whereas India’s city inhabitants is shifting from mom-and-pop stores to quick commerce platforms, its rural facet — house to greater than 800 million folks — nonetheless closely depends on offline companies for each day consumption. Wheelocity goals to remodel that untapped market to let folks dwelling past the highest 200 cities of the nation simply store on-line.
The Chennai-headquartered startup, based in September 2021, has pivoted from the earlier B2B supply chain business for fast commerce platforms into constructing a platform to unravel e-commerce entry for folks dwelling in semi-urban. and rural areas, generally known as “Bharat.”
For a very long time, e-commerce giants Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart have tried to tap rural India to get deeper into the world’s second-biggest web market after China. The area has additionally attracted startups together with Meesho and Rozana. Nonetheless, Wheelocity founder and CEO Selvam VMS advised TechCrunch that none of them might crack that house as a result of entry drawback.
“Our method to fixing this drawback is extraordinarily distinctive,” he mentioned in an interview. “We’re targeted on constructing a 100x higher different for our shoppers.”
Wheelocity has begun the shift by offering freshly produced items together with greens and fruits and groceries via its app. Nonetheless, in contrast to conventional e-commerce platforms that promote merchandise on-line, the startup has taken a “phygital” method. This contains electrical three-wheelers to let the startup take its merchandise into villages bodily each day to assist acquire the belief of shoppers. These autos let shoppers place orders utilizing Wheelocity’s app and get deliveries on their doorstep.
As soon as they get used to it, shoppers will begin utilizing the Wheelocity app at house, VMS predicted.
The manager added that, in contrast to Wheelocity, which provides doorstep deliveries each day, different e-commerce platforms use their take so long as per week to get merchandise delivered in the identical area. This makes it a problem to ship contemporary consumable gadgets and groceries.
Wheelocity makes use of its current provide chain, constructed for the sooner B2B enterprise, to supply clients freshly produced items and groceries sooner. After procuring them from third events together with farmers, the merchandise attain shoppers with Wheelocity’s branding.
VMS sees the shift, which silently began in October 2023, as a $1 trillion-plus alternative. He didn’t disclose the business-related figures however mentioned the startup had a “very, excellent retention.”
The startup at present provides its e-commerce platform in 3,500 villages in central Tamil Nadu and owns 1,000 electrical autos to permit bodily order-placing and deliveries. It has already established an operations workplace in Tamil Nadu’s tier-II metropolis of Trichy to grasp shoppers’ shopping for habits higher and get their suggestions. Subsequent, it plans to scale the enterprise to twenty,000 cities and villages and develop it to all 5 southern states of India inside the subsequent 12 months, taking its platform to 10 million shoppers.
Lightspeed, Wheelocity’s current investor, has backed the most recent transfer by main its Collection A2 spherical of $15 million. In July 2022, the VC fund had led the startup’s $12 million Collection A spherical.
Alteria Capital, Anicut Capital, and VMS additionally participated in Wheelocity’s contemporary spherical. Additional, the spherical contains an undisclosed quantity of debt, primarily to gas the financing of its electrical fleet.
Lightspeed accomplice Rahul Taneja advised TechCrunch that the VC fund determined to reinvest into Wheelocity because the market dimension was considerably giant and untapped and the startup created a singular enterprise mannequin, “which permits worthwhile protection of the areas which have been traditionally not doable.”
The founder’s high quality and keenness for constructing a “profit-making enterprise” earlier than pivoting additionally helped persuade Lightspeed to shut the deal, Taneja mentioned.
Shifting focus to smaller cities and villages in India has been an rising development within the VC market, as shoppers in these areas typically have disposable revenue and intent to purchase. Earlier this yr, Accel additionally started looking at the region to hunt for future unicorns.
