Jugnoo raises $5 million from Paytm, Snow Leopard Technology Ventures

Online hyper-local marketplace Jugnoo, which enables autorickshaw rides as well as delivery of food and grocery through autorickshaws, has raised $5 million in a Series A funding round from Snow Leopard Technology Ventures and homegrown mobile payments and commerce platform Paytm.

The funds will be deployed to expand Jugnoo’s reach from four cities at present—Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Jaipur—to more than 15 by the end of the year. Founded in November 2014 by Samar Singla, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Jugnoo claims 50% repeat purchases every month and a 20% growth in revenues every week.

The Chandigarh-based company is aiming to reach sales of Rs.1,000 crore in the next four to five years. “Today’s consumers want the luxury of having everything delivered to them at home and we felt the best way to go about this was the involvement of autorickshaws,” said chief executive officer (CEO) Singla. “Today, Jugnoo is serving over 150,000 people across four cities, and we plan to expand services to every city and town possible over the next five years.”

In May, Jugnoo had raised $1 million from angel investors, including Rakesh Mathur, CEO of Flywheel and co-founder of Jungle (which was later acquired by Amazon), actor Saumya Tandon, angel investor Vikas Taneja and Just Weil, an investor in Facebook and Yandex.

Jugnoo has three apps, Jugnoo Autos, Jugnoo Meals and Jugnoo Fatafat. The autorickshaw services face stiff competition from deep-pocketed online taxi hailing services such as Ola and Uber, which recently launched autorickshaw services in Delhi. Ola has raised more than Rs.3,700 crore since October last year, while San Francisco-headquartered Uber is one of the most highly valued start-ups globally.

In the home-cooked food segment, Jugnoo will be pitched against other Internet kitchens such as FreshMenu, SpoonJoy and Yumist, while its hyper-local delivery business faces competition from Grofers, which has so far raised $45 million in two rounds of funding, and PepperTap, which has raised $10 million.

Investors, however, remain bullish on Jugnoo’s prospects. “What strengthens it further is their ability to be strongly rooted in data analytics. Decisions and actions are taken based on minute tweaks in variables and understanding of their impact to create a strong customer experience,” said Chris Kolenaty, founder of Snow Leopard Technology Ventures.

[“source-livemint.com”]