Ninjacart

Ninjacart is India's largest fresh produce supply chain company that is solving one of the
toughest problems in the world through technology. They connect producers of food directly
with retailers, restaurants, and service providers using in-house applications that drive end to end
operations. Currently, their Supply Chain is equipped to move 1400 tonnes of perishables from
farms to businesses, every day, in less than 12 hours.

Ninjacart is India’s largest Fresh Produce Supply Chain platform. They are pioneers in solving
one of the toughest supply chain problems of the world by leveraging innovative technology.
They connect producers of food directly with retailers, restaurants, and service providers using
in-house applications that drive end to end operations.

Currently, our supply chain is equipped to move 1400 tonnes of perishables from 20,000+
farmers to 60,000+ retailers and businesses across 7 cities, every day in less than 12 hours.

What they do –

They eliminated intermediaries by taking control of the Supply Chain by using technology and
analytics. They built reliable, cost-effective, and high-speed logistics and infrastructure to solve
for inefficiencies and reduce food wastage in the Supply Chain. On one end, farmers get better
prices and consistent demand, and on the other end, retailers receive fresh produce at competitive
prices that are delivered to their doorstep. Their high-quality and hygienically handled fresh
produce ensures healthy food to consumers.

The problem

 Farmers experience price risk, information asymmetry about demand, distribution

inefficiency, and receive late payments.
 Retailers face problems like higher costs, low quality and unhygienic produce, high price
volatility, and the everyday hassle of going to the market.
  The traditional Supply Chain is highly inefficient, unorganized, and has a high rate of
food wastage.

Their Solution

 They eliminated intermediaries by taking control of the Supply Chain by using

technology and analytics.

 They built reliable, cost-effective, and high-speed logistics and infrastructure to solve for
inefficiencies in the Supply Chain.

 On one end, farmers get better prices and consistent demand, and on the other end,
retailers receive fresh produce at competitive prices that are delivered to their doorstep.

Growth and development

 They work with 20000 farmers

 They supply fresh produce to 60000 retailers

 They move 1400 tonnes of fresh produce a day, pan India

 They are operational in 7 major cities - Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi,

Ahmedabad, Pune, Mumbai

 They source from 150+ Indian Villages

Business Model
Nijacart is a Bangaluru based B2B Startup Founded on 2015. Ninjacart allows farmers to sell
their vegetables and fruits directly to shops, retailers and restaurants without middlemen
involved and going to the collection centers and sanbji mandi or thok markit.

Supply Chain Model of Ninjacart:

Every day, around 500 tonnes of vegetables and fruits are delivered to thousands of shops and
retail stores across multiple cities in India in just two and a half hours. And this is done by
agritech startup Ninjacart with a delivery accuracy rate of 99.88 percent all year-round, without a
single day off. Behind this accurate and large-scale operation is years of hard work, deep market
understanding, and innovative use of technology - all directed towards the single-minded goal of
improving efficiency and plugging pilferage. The four-year-old Bengaluru-headquartered startup
began by focusing on the retail-consumer segment (B2C) but realized that this was not viable in
the long run from a business point of view. It then pivoted to a B2B model to create a seamless
link between farmers’ produce and retail stores.

The science and technology of precise delivery for Ninjacart begins with accurate predictions.
The customer orders today for delivery tomorrow so the purchase and selling happens on the
same day. The first step was to acquire and understand the ‘farmer harvest calendar’, which
would give the team an overview of the fruits and vegetables available in each season. This made
Ninjacart aware of the demand and supply, and gives farmers a week’s notice of what is
expected of them. Next, it needed a fairly good idea of what to expect. For this, the company
gained complete past buying data of customers - what they ordered and the frequency of order to
figure out a pattern and to know which items to procure.
Once the produce is weighed and tagged, a message goes out through an app on the supplied
quantity and the price so that the amount is credited to the farmers’ bank account the next day
Then, Ninjacart moves the crates to fulfilment centres. The startup has brought in certain
innovations like dolleys, which help load and unload the crates faster rather than the traditional
lift-and-place. The entire process is monitored through an app that the company built in-house,
which also helps in the order the carts need to be placed so that the team can deliver faster. This
is the result of their sophisticated supply chain algorithm.

Challenges to overcome

Ninjacart had to overcome many challenges to improve its operational efficiency like ensuring
they receive their payments from shop owners, finding the best routes, and also putting adequate
safeguards against pilferage and financial misappropriation. For example, the crates have
tamper-proof tags, which can be cut only after the message is received, and each shop owner gets
an OTP (one-time-password) to make payments to the driver.

More importantly, the empty crates do not necessarily go back to the same collection centre and
Ninjacart’s technology ensures that the chain remains efficient. Small, grassroots level
innovations are being implemented on a large scale. This has enabled tighter control so that
operations are profitable and they are. Ninjacart also maps the best routes for drivers to reach
their destinations with clearly identified points. This is in the backdrop on the number of vehicles
handled, which has grown from 20 to over 500 today.

Benefits for Farmer

 20% more revenue

 One stop sale
 Payment in 24 hours
 Transparent weighing

Convenience for Retailer

 Competitive Pricing
 Doorstep Delivery
 High quality graded product
 Convenient and time saving

Saving for Consumers

 Hygienically handled products

 100% traceable to Farm- Improves food safety
 Better Quality

Investors

Total funding of Ninjacart is $150 million. April 2019 Ninjacart raised  $100 million in series C
December 2018 Ninjacart raised $34.6 million in Series B. July 2018 Ninjacart raised $4.9
million. March 2018 Ninjacart raised $1 million. April 2017 Ninjacart raised $5.5 million in
Serise A. Agritech Startup Ninjacart has secured Rs 71.83 crore ($10 million) in a Series C
funding round led by Flipkart India and Singapore-based GEC3 along with participation from
Minu Kataria. This capital is the first tranche of the $50 million investment committed by retail
giant Walmart in August last year. This funding round was announced in last month, but the
amount remained undisclosed.

1. Clark Valberg
2. M&S Partners
3. Accel
4. Qualcomm Ventures
5. Syngenta Ventures
6. Mistletoe
7. Trifecta Capital Advisors
8. Tiger Global Management

Future plans:

The startup is gearing up for a future that will be driven by data and predictive models. They
have a database of around 40 different markets in terms of the arrivals, supply, price, etc. In
future, they can predict the prices of vegetables and fruits, and production output. Right now,
data it is not huge, but they are building it for the future.

Ninjacart also toyed with the idea of storage facilities for the fruits and vegetables to see how it
works. As an experiment, it did store some long-lasting vegetables such as potatoes and onion,
and sold them at a profit by accurately predicting the price but it discontinued this process. The
founders strongly believe that given their technology prowess, Ninjacart is a very defensible
business.

From a business point of view, it makes sense as this a $180 billion plus market growing at 9
percent annually. Also, the market is very stable as it an essential commodity. For Ninjacart, it is
a 36-hour cycle from the time it collects produce from the farmers, reaches the shops and the
empty crates goes back to the villages.

Algorithms that change farmers’ lives:

They want to build the next-generation supply chain that can change the lives of India’s 58%
workforce.

 100% Traceable food: Their RFID powered supply chain enables us to track

produce on a store shelf to a farmer and farming data thus providing complete
transparency in the entire food value chain. This becomes the foundation to make
our food safer
 Tomorrow ready ERP: In-house ERP [code name: BiFrost] that accommodates the
flexibility it needs as they scale and delivers a frictionless movement of goods.
Mobile ready ERP also ensures they use zero paper in our supply chain
 Demand Forecasting: Forecast more, you have a lot of unsold wastage; predict
less, you will see customers walking to the market, due to unavailability. They
have leveraged deep machine learning to perfect our forecasting to 97% and
reduce the overall wastage to 4% [Traditional supply chains have wastage up to
25%]
 Price Intelligence: Multiple market intelligence tools and machine learning
algorithms help them predict market prices and help farmers plan harvest
accordingly. The farmer knows the price before harvesting and this increases the
odds of better returns
 Connected Logistics: Speed and cost can make or break any supply chain. Their
indigenous route optimization and utilization helps to keep load factor at 92% and
put fresher vegetables on the plate (they move the produce from farm to store
within 14 hours) at a cost almost 1/3rd of the traditional supply chain
 Social security: Cashless and instant payment solutions help them to put the
money in the hands of the farmer on the same day. This has helped farmers avoid
borrowing money from Mandi traders, who hold their produce captive and pay
low prices or from local money lenders, who charge exorbitant interest