Peel-Works Pvt. Ltd, a grocery business-to-business (B2B) commerce platform, on Monday said it has raised $5 million (Rs 34.5 crore) in its Series B round of funding led by Equanimity Ventures.
Private-sector lender HDFC Bank and Bruno Raschle, founder of asset manager Schroder Adveq that invests globally in private equity, also participated in the funding round, said Peel-Works in a statement.
Existing investors Unilever Ventures, Chiratae Ventures and Inventus Capital India also contributed to this round, it added.
The fresh capital will help the company strengthen its retail management platform Taikee, which helps predict demand, localises inventory management, takes the ordering system online and introduces new data sources.
Taikee has around 20,000 registered retailers and services across various cities including Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Pune, Mysore and Chennai.
“Indian shoppers continue to rely on brick-and-mortar stores for their monthly and daily grocery needs. Taikee helps these retailers grow faster, retain their customers and improve their profitability,” said Sachin Chhabra, founder and CEO, Peel-Works. “The platform delivers this by helping the retailer right-size his assortment, buy it cheaper, and adopt technology that makes it convenient for shoppers to transact with him," he added.
Peel-Works was founded in 2010 by Chhabra and Nidhi Ramachandran. Prior to establishing Peel-Works, Chhabra, an alumnus of St Stephens College, was with Hindustan Unilever for 14 years, having begun his career in 1996. Ramachandran is an alumnus of Indian Business School.
Equanimity
The early-stage venture capital firm was founded in 2017 by Rajesh Sehgal, formerly with US-based Franklin Templeton Investments. It counts emerging markets guru Mark Mobius as a member of its investment committee.
In February last year, Equanimity marked the first close of its debut fund at Rs 70 crore ($10.8 million). The fund has a target corpus of Rs 200 crore, including a greenshoe option of Rs 100 crore. The fund is sector-agnostic but plans to back early-stage tech startups in sectors such as fin-tech, health-tech and data analytics.
It has invested in companies including online event venue booking platform BookEventZ.com, fintech startup Sqrrl and medical supplies and services marketplace DrStore.