Chennai, NFAPost: Otipy, the social commerce venture of farm-to-fork agritech startup Crofarm, has raised $1 million from Inflection Point Ventures, an early-stage investing platform. The company has already scaled 4X growth in the last three months. It expects the fresh funding to further boost its momentum in Unlock Phase 3.0 as well.
Otipy is India’s first social commerce model to connect consumers with farmers through women resellers. It already has more than 1,000 partner resellers (mainly women), catering to over 1,00,000 consumers. It offers an extensive product catalogue of fresh, hygienic and chemical-free on-demand fruits & vegetables from the farm, which is usually 25% cheaper than the market.
Otipy Co-Founder & CEO Varun Khurana said, “We are super excited to partner with Inflection Point Ventures at this juncture when our business is showing very high consumer stickiness. We have built a very strong community with our partner resellers (mostly women) and have empowered them by providing an alternate source of income especially in these times when other sources have dried up. Also, with the recent changes in APMC our farmer network is growing at a very fast pace.”
Inflection Point Ventures is an initiative of accomplished CXOs and Angel Investors. Started in 2018, IPV has invested more than Rs 100 crore across 35 startups. IPV’s investors’ base, currently at over 2,500 is seeing a massive influx of highly accomplished CXOs and HNIs, looking to invest in startups with rational valuation and sustainable business model.
IPV Founder and CEO Vinay Bansal said, “Otipy is a new concept in India and has gained huge traction so far. Not only does it eliminate the challenge of fair pricing for farmers, but also ensures delivery of fresh produce to end-consumers in a manner that is un-matchable on price and freshness that is enabled by unique and tech-drive supply chain.”
“The company has really performed well since its inception, and it’s certainly going to be a trendsetter in the times to come. We watched the company’s performance closely during lockdown, and more importantly its growth during the un-locking phase, which led to believe in its sustainable value proposition and the vision of transforming the entire farm ecosystem in India,” he added.
Otipy will leverage these funds to augment the existing technology infrastructure, further expand the reseller base in Delhi/NCR and go deeper with its farmer relationships so that consumers can get the freshest produce at the lowest prices. Previously operational in Delhi and Gurugram, the platform has recently launched its services in Noida, Ghaziabad and Greater Noida, providing fresh produce to end-consumers residing in these regions.
Using AI-based demand prediction tool, the platform collects historical data to procure the produce, facilitates on-demand harvesting and thereby ensures delivery of fresh produce on the same day. It also uses customer relationship management tools on WhatsApp to seamlessly interact and serve consumers while keeping the overall transaction fully transparent at every step. Through the secured funds, the company will strengthen this mechanism and strive to serve customers better.
Otipy is a B2B2C platform, powered by social commerce. It is the supply chain of fresh produce in India which also works closely with reseller partners (mainly women). Otipy focuses on-demand harvesting as per predicted demand to keep minimum wastage through technology used for procurement, distribution and delivery. Otipy, through its B2B arm, supplies fruits and vegetables to over 5,000 plus retailers, which is sourced from farmers across Haryana, UP, Delhi, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra.
