Commodity procurement platform Procol Tech Pvt. Ltd. has raised $1 million (Rs 6.88 crore at current exchange rates) in a seed funding round led by VC firm Blume Ventures and Rainmatter Capital, an initiative by financial firm Zerodha.
Delhi-based Procol will use the funding to scale its procurement platform and begin deploying other applications around it, the company said in a statement. The company is building a full-stack ecosystem for the Indian commodity market, which will help enable access to a transparent information platform, it added.
Gaurav Baheti, co-founder and chief executive officer, Procol, said the company’s platform has helped its customers achieve “dramatic” cost benefits. “We are building on this success by adding related optimization tools and intelligence,” he added.
“The rapid adoption of Procol’s auction platform by India’s leading agri buyers and sellers is a clear sign that the platform is fulfilling a long standing market gap,” Blume Ventures managing partner Karthik Reddy said.
Procol, which was established in 2018, says its platform enables companies to procure their goods by creating live auctions and managing supply chains by tracking those goods as well paying suppliers. It also provides market rates and commodity insights. According to its website, the startup claims to have worked with companies such as Haldiram’s, Big Bazaar, and Bikanervala.
Investors
Blume Ventures is a homegrown VC firm founded in 2010 by Reddy and Sanjay Nath. It is looking at a final close of its third fund, after making the first close at $40 million in October last year.
It has invested in more than 100 startups. Earlier this month, it announced an investment of $2.5 million (around Rs 17.15 crore) in HealthAssure Pvt. Ltd., an online aggregator of primary healthcare services. It has also backed companies such as deep-technology startup Agara Labs and retail print chain Printo Document Services Pvt. Ltd.
The Bengaluru-based Rainmatter Capital is a startup incubator focussed on the financial technology and technology spaces. The firm says it provides funding as well as workspaces to companies. It has backed companies such as options trading platform Sensibull, as well as LearnApp, a digital learning platform.
