Otipy claims to operate at 35% gross margin and empowering communities
Gurugram-based agritech strt up, Crofarm, has entered business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) space after four years of operations. The farm to retail agritech startup, has launched – Otipy – a community-based platform to connect consumers, resellers and farmers for bringing fresh produce to doorstep at reasonable prices.
The new product will work on a social commerce model, where the company will deliver the products to resellers, who will handle the last-mile delivery and can earn a healthy commission.
Crofarm has been testing the social commerce model from the past couple of months and is already serving over 50,000 consumers through a network of more than 500 reseller partners. As compared to existing social selling models for grocery and fashion, Otipy claims to operate at 35% gross margin and empowering communities – women (demand side) who can make Rs 20,000-60,000 per month. It is currently operational in Delhi NCR.
Varun Khurana co-founder and CEO of Crofarm said, “Crofarm is targeting the large market with a broken supply chain but a scalable demand led-model. Globally, Chinese e-commerce platform Xingsheng Youxuan has championed the model while the Chilibeli is mirroring the social commerce format with a decent scale.”
The company claims to do something meaningful and bring a fundamental change in lives of the farmers and consumers at large. Basically, Crofarm supplies fruits and vegetables to over 5000 plus retailers, which is sourced from farmers across Haryana, UP, Delhi, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra.
Crofarm has also raised a $1 million fresh financing round led by Smile Group, said Khurana. According to regulatory filings, Crofarm has raised Rs 14.5 crore since its Rs 3.8 crore bridge round in early January. In a fresh tranche, the company has raised Rs 5 crore from Bytez Ventures, Manish Vij (via Smile Group) and Wong Kok Wai.
At the beginning of this year, Crofarm had raked in $500K from a clutch of HNIs including Vinay Mittal, former Chief of Strategy at HT Media, Ramit Sethi from Strongbox Ventures and others.
