Ripplr, owned and operated by Intelligent Retail Pvt Ltd, a tech-enabled distribution and logistics ecosystem platform, on Wednesday said that it has raised $12 million in pre-Series B funding.
The funding round was a mix of equity and debt, which saw participation from Sojitz Corporation, a Japanese conglomerate and Stride Ventures, along with existing investors 3one4 Capital, Zephyr Peacock India Growth Fund and Chand Family Office--Yukti, supported by eminent early-stage angel investors Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura, founders of Licious, Aniketh and Ashish founders of Solution Infini (now Kaleyra), the company said in a statement.
Ripplr said it plans to use the funds for enhancing the company’s technology capabilities, for product development, to hire new employees, and expand to newer markets. Ripplr said that its revenue has grown more than seven times over the last year, and the company aims to clock Rs 1,000 crore annualised revenue run rate in the next 12 months.
Ripplr, which counts fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies like Hindustan Unilever, Britannia, ITC, Reckitt Benckisser, Godrej, Dabur and Nivea among others as its partners, currently has a presence in six cities and claims to cover around 30,000 retailers. The company aims to expand to 100 cities and cover 1 lakh retailers over the next 12 months, it said.
“With our new model for the FMCG distribution and retail sector, we are in the process of disrupting traditional channels. Our artificial intelligence/machine learning-based distribution platform bridges the gap between brands and unorganised retail, solving both distribution and information asymmetry. We will use these fresh funds to scale our business into new geographies and build robust tech capabilities,” said Abhishek Nehru and Santosh Dabke, Co-founders, Ripplr in a joint statement.
Ripplr is already engaged with an international investment banker and the company is in an advanced stage of discussion to close their series B funding early next year, the statement said.
