OneKiraana, a startup enabling India’s kirana shops to create their very own non-public labels by means of customisation on the micro-layer, introduced it has raised $1.6 million in a seed funding spherical led by Ankur Capital.

The spherical additionally noticed participation from GreenTrunk Ventures, VCMint and different angel buyers.

The startup will use the recent capital to increase its tech and manufacturing capabilities, deepen its last-mile logistics community, and develop its retailer footprint throughout India.

Based on OneKiraana, India’s $500 billion grocery market stays largely offline and is served by greater than 13 million neighborhood kirana shops. Nevertheless, these shops have traditionally operated with fragmented provide chains, restricted pricing energy, and little to no model id of their very own.

OneKiraana mentioned goals to alter this by means of its on-line platform, which mixes micro-layer SKU customization, last-mile logistics, and data-driven optimization to reshape native commerce.

By working intently with shops, the platform captures insights equivalent to SKU-level gross sales velocity, pricing conduct, regional preferences, and dealing capital cycles.

The startup claims it at the moment works with greater than 900 kirana shops and has equipped over 3 million private-label merchandise throughout 1,500 SKUs in 25 classes.

“We began OneKiraana with the idea that kiranas want foundational infrastructure to thrive in a world the place shopper expectations round high quality, packaging and supply are quickly altering,” mentioned Bhavin Soni, Co-Founder and CEO, OneKiraana.

“The chance is obvious: kiranas that improve their choices with the suitable know-how infrastructure – higher merchandise, environment friendly distribution, and enabling intelligence layer – will seize the following wave of consumption and emerge as ‘shiny shops’ of their neighborhoods. In the present day, we’re constructing the rails – product, mass customization and hyperlocal intelligence – enabling kiranas to construct their very own model id and get management over pricing, aligning our success with retailer success. Over the following 18 months, we are going to construct the end-to-end working system that lets each neighborhood retailer compete like a scaled retailer.”

Rema Subramanian, Managing Companion at Ankur Capital, added “At Ankur Capital, we search for alternatives the place technological shifts create new alternatives at scale. We’re at an enchanting inflection level within the Indian grocery retail panorama, and OneKiraana is constructing the entire infrastructure layer that permits mass customization for kirana shops. Expertise that permits higher merchandise custom-made to native wants, environment friendly distribution to go worth to retailer house owners, and last-mile supply – these three rails working collectively create a compounding benefit that was earlier solely obtainable to bigger organized retailers.”