Rural commerce startup Rozana, which counts Bertelssman India Investments and Fireside Ventures as investors, has onboarded a former executive from Binny Bansal’s consultancy startup xto10x as a co-founder.
Abhijit Upadhye will be joining the startup as a co-founder, the startup’s co-founder Ankur Dahiya posted on LinkedIn on Thursday.
With over thirty years of experience, Upadhye has worked with Infosys, Perfetti Van Melle, Flipkart as a vice president and Jeeves, which is owned by Flipkart as their chief executive officer. He also served as the managing director of FMCG brand Tasty Bites before joining xto10x as a partner.
Notably, Rozana has been closely working with Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal’s consultancy startup. The firm has been on a long-term partnership with Rozana on warehouse design, last-mile delivery, technology, category launch, among other things.
Founded in 2021 by Ankur Dahiya, Adwait Vikram Singh, Mukesh Christopher and Prithvi Pal Singh, Rozana operates an e-commerce platform and logistics network focused on serving the needs of rural communities in India. It claims that it currently serves more than 12,000 villages across 13 districts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
Last month, Rozana raised $22.5 million in a funding round led by Bertelsmann India Investments along with participation from Fireside Ventures and Licious' co-founder Vivek Gupta.
The startup operates across 13 districts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and has a network of approximately 18,000 last-mile partners, who are predominantly village residents, with over 90% of them being women. The primary responsibility of these partners involves consolidating orders and making deliveries within their local communities, typically comprising 30 to 40 households.
Previously, the company raised $2.5 million in its pre-Series A round in April 2022 from 3one4 Capital and IEG (Investment Banking Group).
