Wheelocity Fresh Pvt. Ltd, a fresh produce supply chain startup has raised $12 million (around Rs 93.4 crore) in a mix of equity and debt in a Series A round, led by Lightspeed with participation from Anicut Capital, the company said on Tuesday.
The fresh funds will be used to build new product offerings and scale current ones. The company aims to reduce redundancies in the food and vegetable (F&V) supply chain through developing capacities around the Internet of Things (IoT) based packing units and warehousing and logistics automation, it said.
Wheelocity said it would also explore sectors like dairy, meat, poultry, and seafood in the coming months.
Founded in September 2021 by Selvam VMS, Senthil Kumar A and Amresh Singh, the company has become operational in over 12 cities, handling up to 700 tonnes of food and vegetables. Wheelocity has around 350 employees and looks to increase hiring in the coming months.
“India is a fresh-food surplus country. On one hand, while we dump/lose hundreds of thousands of tonnes of food every day due to supply chain inefficiencies, on the other, studies indicate more than 33 million Indians are undernourished. There is a massive problem to be solved by building the rails for fresh produce in India,” Selvam said.
Chief executive Selvam has over 15 years of experience in working in the supply chain space. He has a master’s degree in the supply chain from Purdue University. Before that, he founded H&S Supply Chain Solutions. Chief Operating Officer Senthil Kumar previously worked with companies like Coca-Cola and Saint Gobain before joining H&W and subsequently Wheelocity. While chief product officer Amresh Singh has served over two decades in the Indian Navy, he has completed his MBA from ISD and later served as a senior director in agritech startup Ninjacart.
Wheelocity with its network of collection centres, fulfilment and distribution centres, last-mile hubs, and dark stores (warehouses without retail storefronts), enables the delivery of fresh produce while aiming to reduce wastage to a minimum. The company counts the likes of Swiggy’s Instamart, Blinkit, WayCool, Zomato, Ninjacart, Meesho, Zepto and Dunzo as part of its clientele.