Rural commerce startup Rozana has raised $22.5 million in a fresh round of funding, led by Bertelsmann India Investments along with participation from Fireside Ventures and other existing investors.
Licious' co-founder Vivek Gupta also invested in the round and will now serve on the board of the company.
The funding will be used to expand the company’s warehousing and logistics reach into new districts, enhance its technology platform and boost hiring across technology, product and operations teams, Rozana said in a release.
Founded in 2021 by Ankur Dahiya, Adwait Vikram Singh, Mukesh Christopher and Prithvi Pal Singh, Rozana operates an e-commerce platform and logistics network focussed on serving the needs of rural communities in India. It claims that it currently serves more than 12,000 villages across 13 districts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
“Rural India represents an underserved e-commerce opportunity consisting of nearly a billion people,” said Ankur Dahiya, co-founder and chief executive officer, Rozana.
“With this funding, we will continue building our logistics and supply chain infrastructure to reach new districts and provide rural communities an access to essential products.”
Rozana operates across 13 districts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and has a network of approximately 18,000 last-mile partners, who are predominantly village residents, with over 90% of them being women. The primary responsibility of these partners involves consolidating orders and making deliveries within their local communities, typically comprising 30 to 40 households.
Rozana said that it will be working very closely with Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal’s consultancy startup xto10x, to work on creating India’s fastest-growing rural commerce company. The consultancy firm is working on a long-term partnership with Rozana on warehouse design, last-mile delivery, technology, category launch, among other things.
Prior to this round, the company raised $2.5 million in its pre-Series A round in April 2022 from 3one4 Capital and IEG (Investment Banking Group).
