Fresh produce foodtech startup, Pluckk has raised $5 Mn in seed funding from Exponentia Ventures; a fund focussed on emerging business ideas in both B2C and B2B segments.

Founded in 2021, by Pratik Gupta, Pluckk aims to build a digital commerce platform to serve the growing demand for lifestyle-oriented fresh produce. The startup’s proposition is centred towards global food trends ranging from vegan, carb alternatives, gut health, immunity to plant-forward eating to prevent diabetes and mental health. Its cofounder Pratik Gupta is an IMT Ghaziabad alumnus and has previously built an online grocery venture Wadi.com, which was later acquired by MAF (Carrefour).

Pluck intends to utilise the funding towards building team, technology, farm to fork infrastructure, customer acquisition and expansion into key metro cities. 

Interestingly, the startup said a part of this fund will also be utilised to acquire Indus Fresh – an existing player serving both B2C and B2B customers such as Flipkart, Amazon, Swiggy, Dunzo and Zepto.

Sharing his plans, Pratik Gupta, CEO and cofounder, Pluckk said, “The biggest consumer revolution we are witnessing today is that consumers not only want to enjoy eating but are also increasingly very careful on what they eat. Pluckk aims to be the brand of choice by providing the widest curated range of such lifestyle-oriented fresh produce. At the core, Pluckk will work with farmers through its bespoke win-win program that focuses on-farm practices to ensure residue-free and traceable produce.”

With this fresh funding, the products and services of Pluckk will now also be made available to a wider set of consumers in key metro cities such as Bengaluru and Mumbai through its D2C platform as well as through ecommerce platforms under its brand name. Additionally, the startup has plans to enter Gurugram, Pune and Hyderabad in the next phase of expansion. 

According to the startup, it has already onboarded 100 plus farmers across Mumbai and Bengaluru and plans to reach the 1,000 mark by March 2022. 

Alok Gupta, partner, Exponentia Ventures, said, “Our commitment continues to invest in ideas that connect with the emerging ecosystem. In Pluckk, we find an agile business team with an execution focus and leveraging a deep customer insight which can scale to millions of customers.”

The Indian online grocery market size is currently valued at $4 Bn growing at a CAGR of 37% and is expected to grow 10X touching $40 Bn in the next seven years. 

Of the total grocery market, fruits and vegetables account for 15-20% of the market size, where Pluckk aims to gain a higher single-digit share of this market in the next 3-5 years.

The foodtech sector has been gaining momentum with startups raising funding and many startups growing their customer base. In the first week of January, we saw cloud kitchen startup Curefoods acquiring five D2C food brands across the country. With these five brands, Curefoods has a total of 20 brands in its portfolio.

Curefoods competes with foodtech unicorn Rebel Foods, which operates 450+ kitchens & 4K+ internet restaurants globally across 60+ cities in 10 countries, in the cloud kitchen category.