Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

E-Commerce business focused on groceries are back in focus with few companies tying up funding recently. Although investors were wary about online stores, but that sentiment has changed. Bangalore witnessed the launch of Toptomato, founded by the alumnus of IIT KGP.

Toptomato.in is an online platform for ordering all household items in a simple and convenient manner. They have over 6000+ products in their portfolio spanning the FMCG segments of food, personal care and household care items. They also have highly customized delivery solutions to take care of the preferences of customers in the best possible way. Toptomato.in is the answer to mundane Sunday morning shopping chores, long queues at the billing desks and daily procurement hassles.

TopTomato has couple of unique features which sets it apart in the e-com marketplace.  The website offers packages for different segments of customers and specific delivery slots for comfortable shopping. One can also opt for Toptomato subscription which is based on weekly/bi-weekly/ monthly basis. The website currently retails kitchen and daily essentials and currently features deep discounts on several products. Currently they are operational in South, East and Central Bangalore.

Key USPs:

• Customised home delivery solutions – delivery within 24 hours
• Periodic Deliveries – you place your order once and they are automatically delivered to you
• Concept of shopping list and customized packages

 About the Founders:

Ms. Sneha Roy, Director – Sneha is an Instrumentation Engineer from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Post her graduation, Sneha joined ITC where she handled diverse profiles including Project Manager & Plant Maintenance Manager. Sneha believes in doing things differently and innovation is her passion.

Ms. Sananda Misra, Director – Sananda is an Instrumentation Engineer from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. After IIT, Sananda joined Procter and Gamble, Bhopal where she spearheaded multiple projects.

Direct Competitiors : Bigbasket, Zopnow.

Investments in this space:

ZopNow – (July 2012)- Raised Series A from Accel Partners, Qualcomm Ventures and media group     Bennett Coleman & Co.

EkStop: (June 2012) – Undisclosed angel funding from angel investors. The investors include:

• Jayesh Parekh (co-founder of Sony Entertainment Television),
• Deepak Shahdadpuri (head of Beacon India Private Equity Fund),
• Patrick Turner (Runs the entrepreneurship department at INSEAD),
• Jungle Ventures, Sanjay Kamlani (co-CEO of Pangea3)
• Senior Google and McKinsey executives.

Bigbasket – (March 2012)-Bangalore-based private equity firm Ascent Capital invested $10 million in the first round of funding in BigBasket.com

Give TopTomato a spin and let us know your feedback.

-Abhishek, vcBytes.com

Money-Wiazrds, an offline financial education provider has raised an investments from a Singapore based Tenshi Peak Ventures. Money-Wizards is Chennai based startup founded by two IIM-B alums – Venkatest Venkatesh Varadachari and Professor Thillai Rajan.  Money-Wizards aims to be global leader in world class financial literacy and money education.

Funds will be utilized in expanding the team and also to develop the online learning platform which can scale in rapidly.

Money-Wizards offers finance courses and caters to diverse groups, including school and college students, working adults and corporate houses. It has already partnered with 15 schools in Chennai, Bangalore and Singapore.

Customer Pain Points in Financial Space:

• Even as financial products and services get more and more complex, most people do not understand enough “finance” to take informed decisions.
• Currently it is the salesmen and intermediaries who are doing the “educating”. Customers are relying on their financial barbers to tell them if they need a hair cut!
• The products that are shoved down the customer’s throat are not necessarily the ones that benefit him.

Nadhi Technologies, a 2.5yr old Chennai based SaaS startup has developed  lightweight, easy-to-use construction supply chain solutions for real estate and infrastructure construction projects.

Nadhi.in is founded by two civil engineers – Vaidyanathan and Ravi. S. Mundoli from IIT-M; Both have worked in manufacturing SCM at i2 Technologies before founding Nadhi.  Nadhi is incubated out of the IITM Research Park.

Nadhi provides easy-to-use supply chain management (SCM) tools toreal  ensure the synchronous on-site arrival of labour and materials per the updated construction schedule through the life of the project.

Nadhi’s core solution is a project monitoring and control solution with a mobile extension  – nPulse™ that reduces the information latency between various stakeholders in a construction project to zero and transitions business from reactive to proactive. Nadhi has built the industry’s first procurement planning solution that uses inventory management theory to optimize material procurement costs in construction.

In short, Nadhi builds solutions that complement ERP systems. Nadhi offers business process consulting to help transition companies to a managed platform. Nadhi also offers lean construction consulting practice.

Nadhi’s target customers are EPC contractors, infrastructure project owners, real estate developers. The market size for IT in construction is estimated to be about $5 billion and the potential to expand worldwide also exists. Nadhi’s revenue sources are software revenue – both subscription (SaaS model) and enterprise license options are available and consulting services.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

ThePrivateSales.com a flash sale site promoted by Bangalore based TPS shopping Outlet Pvt Ltd has raised $5M from a private company. ThePrivateSales was founded in mid 2010 by Sunder and Sajan Gianchandani as a flash sales website offering high-end products by Indian and global fashion labels.

Investments will primarily used in adding more brands in the inventory and also increase man power and open offices and warehouses across all the metros. Good part of Investment will go into brand building and marketing,ThePrivateSales plans to invest heavily on online and viral marketing, they would spend nearly 1Crore on it.

Unlike FashionandYou, Theprivatesales deals with high end designer labels like Versace, Renata Riggi etc. Since founders have vast experience in fashion industry they are leveraging their experience in striking fantastic deals. I personally like the categorization of products at ThePrivateSales.com, easy to find products, and like FashionandYou where all brands of a particular category are placed in one webpage. Discounts offered by ThePrivateSales are pretty good compared to other flash sale sites.

ThePrivateSales.com claims to have above 4L registered users, their monthly sales are growing at 50-60%. Major competitors in this space are – 99Labels.com, Bagittoday, Fashionandyou.com, Exclusively.in

Lets have a look at ThePrivateSales monthly traction -

ThePrivateSales.com has healthy traction, and with investments coming in its all poised to go upwards.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

FirstCry, a pune based online retailer for kids and babycare products has raised investments of $4M from SAIF Partners. The investments will be utilized in scaling up the operations, setting up the engineering team and warehouses for speedy delivery of products.

FirstCry is run by BrainBees Solutions Pvt Ltd and is founded by Sunil Maheshwari and Amitava Saha. Sunil is a serial entrepreneur and had earlier co-founded Brainvisa Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which was sold to Indecomm Global Services in 2007. Brainvisa had raised $5M from Sequoia Capital.

FirstCry has tied-up with over 100 brands like Mattel, Funskool, Hotwheels, Disney , Barbie, Zapak and offers a range of over 4,000 products including Pampers diapers, Johnson’s skincare range and cycle maker BSA’s prams and strollers. FirstCry aims to cover the complete gammut of parenting – from clothings for new mothers, babycare products and toys for little grown up kids.

Currently, it does 200 transactions a day. The portal has plans to expand to newer markets in Asia like Srilanka, Indonesia and Malaysia. As per Sunil the market size is very large – it is a $5 billion opportunity, and  growing very fast in  tier 2 and 3 cities. Around 35% of FirstCry orders come from towns and the demand is huge, considering the lack of options, access and range. It is a prime market for e-commerce firms.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com