Chennai-based fresh produce distributor WayCool Foods plans to scale up its operations across southern and western India following a new round of investments.
The firm, founded in 2015 by Karthik Jayaraman and Sanjay Dasari, this week announced it has secured around US$17m in funds to “bolster its technology platform and reinforce its supply chain by building or acquiring assets and capabilities in sourcing, value added products, and automation of distribution lines”.
WayCool Foods currently distributes over 150 tonnes of fresh produce daily from 13 locations in India, and will open three new distribution centres with the new money raised.
Commenting on the latest funding, WayCool Foods co-founder and CEO Jayaraman said: “We are committed to solving India’s food supply chain problems while making a substantial positive difference to the farmers and consumers. We aim to build a large food distribution business by leveraging cutting edge technology to create efficiencies.
“As we continue scaling across product segments, geographies, and business lines, we will continue to raise funds but at the same time remain capital efficient and achieve a quality, mature business at scale by carefully calibrating the stage of the business to the funding needs.”
Kartik Srivatsa, managing partner at Aspada, an earlier investor in WayCool, said: “What impresses us most about WayCool is their execution capability. They have been able to scale rapidly and consistently by leveraging technology to build a high-quality supply chain despite market disturbances. The Company has scaled 20x since the last round of funding with judicious use of capital.”
WayCool says it sources 70 per cent of its fresh produce directly from farmers and farming partners, with 100 per cent of payments made digitally in three to five days.
It adds it has increased farmer income by 20 per cent, on average.
