Logistics startup Ripplr raises $40 million in funding led by Fireside Ventures

New investors including snackmaker Bikaji and sauce and dips maker Neo Foods also participated in the round along with existing investors 3one4 Capital, Zephyr Peacock and Japanese conglomerate Sojitz Corporation.

The debt investors include Stride Ventures, Alteria Capital, Northern Arc Investments and Trifecta Capital. Santosh Dabke, cofounder of Ripplr, told ET that around $12 million is in the form of debt, while the rest is equity. He said that the investment from Bikaji and Neo Foods is strategic in nature as these companies are Ripplr’s clients as well.

“Bikaji’s has a strong presence in north India and we have a strong presence in the south and they would want to leverage our capabilities to strengthen their presence here,” said Dabke.

The fresh funding will be used to expand into more cities outside of south India and hire more people.

Founded in 2019, Ripplr offers a plug-and-play service for brands to distribute their products to kirana stores. It has operations across 12 cities and claims to be operationally profitable.

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Ripplr had earlier raised $12 million in a funding round with a mix of equity and debt from Japanese firm Sojitz Corporation and Stride Ventures in December 2021. Dabke said that in FY23 Ripplr recorded a revenue of about Rs 900 crore.The company is also involved in sector-agnostic logistics business but Dabke said that about 90% of the company’s revenues come from the distribution business.

Ripplr’s technology facilitates AI-based predictions and decisions, efficient loading and routing decisions, live inventory tracking and buying patterns. It deploys predictive analytics to manage demand and inventory for both brands and retailers.

Ripplr has been backed by multiple investors and has raised a total of $56 million so far. Its distribution network has 24 warehouses across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune along with tier-2 cities servicing more than 80,000 retailers. It works with FMCG brands like HUL, Britannia, ITC, Nestle, Mondelez, Colgate Reckitt Benckiser, Godrej, Dabur, and Nivea among others.

“There is an increasing focus on offline expansion that we see with D2C brands after they acquire a strong consumer franchise. Ripplr’s plug -n-play model will work superbly well for such D2C brands,” said VS Kannan, cofounder and partner at Fireside Ventures.

Ripplr faces competition from Lightspeed Venture Partners-backed Udaan, Reliance JioMart Partners, Shopkirana, SoftBank-backed Elastic Run, Tiger Global-backed ApnaKlub among others in the space.