Flipkart to invest $145 m in Ninjacart

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Walmart and Flipkart have announced that it will invest $145 million in Ninjacart, a fresh produce supply chain startup. This funding will help Ninjacart invest in technology and scale up infrastructure.

Flipkart and Ninjacart hope to support the local farming communities by improving the agricultural supply chain through digitisation.

Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said, “Our investment and partnership in Ninjacart over the years is a testament to the continued commitment and success we have seen in our endeavour to create a democratic and organized agriculture market. At Flipkart, we are well poised and committed to building a sustainable ecosystem for fresh produce and uplift the communities associated with it in the process.”

Ninjacart co-founder and CEO Thirukumaran Nagarajan said, “The funds will enable us to dream beyond organizing the farmer-to-retailer ecosystem to a much larger goal of organizing the complete Agri ecosystem and enabling transparent commerce.”

Thanking Flipkart and Walmart for their continued support, he said, “India is at the cusp of formalizing the agriculture industry, with the advent of better road connectivity, GST, seamless payments, digital infrastructure, etc. This opens up a tremendous opportunity to organize our Agri ecosystem landscape like never before.” He said the funds will be deployed to build “world-class teams, scalable tech platforms to organize and grow the network”.

Ninjacart has a presence in 150 villages and works closely with over 1,00,000 farmers to help them generate better revenues.

Flipkart offers groceries in 1,800 cities and aims to take its offering to 2,000 more towns by mid-next year. Fresh fruits and vegetables will be an integral part of the expansion.