Karthik Gurumurthy, the architect behind Swiggy Instamart who helped scale the vertical from scratch in 2020 to a nearly $1 Bn valuation, has reportedly secured a funding of $3 Mn (around INR 25 Cr) for his new offline retail venture led by Matrix Partners India and a clutch of angel investors.
As per Moneycontrol’s report, citing sources, the round is still ongoing so the contours of the deal may change slightly before the final close.
In November last year, it was reported that Swiggy’s senior vice president (SVP) Gurumurthy is set to depart the foodtech giant to launch his own startup. This came months after Gurumurthy went on a sabbatical in March and returned to head Swiggy’s hyperlocal commerce arm Swiggy Mall, formerly called Swiggy Maxx.
An alumnus of BITS Pilani and Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, Gurumurthy earlier worked with global consulting firm Kearney, confectionary major Mondelez International, and software giant Oracle.
Sources told Moneycontrol that Gurumurthy’s new venture will be called Convenio, similar to what Aldi, a low-cost physical store model, does in Germany, the UK and other parts of Europe, but will sell only fresh produce.
As per the report, the new platform will operate in the offline space and will mirror Swiggy.
“(I) have started my journey of solving fresh category retail in India – solving the consumer problem of providing good quality fresh, fruits, vegetables, dairy, bakery etc, at affordable prices,” Gurumurthy wrote in his latest LinkedIn update.
Inc42 has reached out to Gurumurthy. The story will be updated later based on his response.
The start of the new venture also adds to the trend of entrepreneurs and executives quitting their jobs and ventures to launch new startups in the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world. The past few years have seen eminent entrepreneurs like Kunal Shah (Freecharge to CRED), Jitendra Gupta (Citrus Pay to Jupiter), Anant Goel (Milkbasket to Sorted), among others, raise funds to start their new ventures.
According to industry experts, investors tend to have more confidence in second and third-time founders, making them preferred choices for investment. And there is a simple explanation for this — such entrepreneurs are already well-versed in the industry cycles and the rules of the game.
As far as the realm of the Indian startup ecosystem is concerned, such founders are more likely to succeed, without relying much on vanity metrics like valuations, and mentor new breeds of entrepreneurs entering the domain.
Earlier this week, Gautam Sinha, former chief executive officer of Times Internet, floated a new artificial intelligence (AI) venture SimpleO.ai to simplify contract management for enterprises. SimpleO aims to leverage generative AI to provide a dashboard and manage the risks, obligations, service-level agreements, audits, compliance, and governance requirements associated with the tens of thousands of contracts signed by enterprises.
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