Podcast: Jumbotail’s Ashish Jhina on tapping into kirana stores and unit economics

By Narinder Kapur

  • 08 Dec 2020

Jumbotail, an online business-to-business marketplace that focusses on neighbourhood kirana stores, raised funding in October to expand its network, grow its private-label product portfolio and extend its go-to-market services.

The Bengaluru-based company had mopped up $11 million (around Rs 81 crore) in an extension of its Series B round from investors including Heron Rock, Nexus Venture Partners, Siddhi Capital and Reaction Fund.

The startup was set up by S Karthik Venkateswaran and Ashish Jhina in 2015. Since its inception, the company has focussed on building an end-to-end ecosystem for its core market, with services including a marketplace, supply chain logistics, and a private-label product portfolio.

In a podcast with VCCircle, Jhina talks about the company refining its model instead of scaling too quickly, as well as kirana stores receiving their due in public perception following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in India.

He also explains why Jumbotail's customers are among the savviest entrepreneurs in the world, as well as the importance of the company staying true to its core values and building itself around those.