Ninjacart will get a USD 145 million investment from Flipkart India and Walmart to expand its access to high-quality fresh produce for more merchants and customers across India, while also providing economic possibilities and higher salaries for Indian farmers. Ninjacart’s goal of building technology and infrastructure to organise, empower, and enhance the lives of millions of agri value chain participants, including farmers, resellers, retailers, consumers, and supply chain participants, will be accelerated thanks to a new round of joint investment announced on Monday.
Ninjacart and the Ministry of Agriculture signed a Memorandum of Understanding earlier this year to develop market links and promote best practices in the farming industry. The firm will develop and host the Agri Marketplace Platform (AMP), which will enable farmers to receive a fair price for their produce, provide better food to consumers, and provide value to all stakeholders. Ninjacart has helped over a million farmers increase their earnings by utilising supply chain technology to address concerns like distribution inefficiencies and pricing risk.
According to Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart, “the investment will go towards growing our food footprint and delivering to consumers searching for quality and inexpensive alternatives in the fresh sector.” Currently, the firm sells groceries in 1800 cities and towns, with plans to expand to 2,000 more by the middle of next year. Fresh fruits and vegetables will play a key role in the expansion, with the company doubling down on its commitment to working with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to provide access to high-quality fresh produce, staples, pulses, and spices, as well as new revenue opportunities for farmers across the country.
“The funds will be deployed to build world-class teams, scalable tech platforms to organize and grow the network”, says Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Co-founder and CEO, Ninjacart. Apart from this investment in Ninjacart, the Walmart Foundation has a commitment of USD 25 million over 5 years and has already allocated $15 million in grants to support farmers market access programmes.
