BANGALORE, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Trifecta Capital today announced that it has provided Rs. 45 crores of venture debt to SuperMarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd. that owns and operates the online food and grocery portal bigbasket.com. The funds will be used to meet the capex requirements of the company, including setting up new warehouses, strengthening the cold chain and setting up facilities for reprocessing of fruits and vegetables.
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"We have a clearly identified use case for debt. We are present in 25 cities and continue to optimise our supply chain. A significant part of our business is fresh fruits and vegetables, the bulk of which is sourced directly from farms. It is crucial that we maintain the quality right upto the last mile. We are in the last leg of a pilot which will ensure that all fruits and vegetables are maintained at constant temperature and there by improve shelf life of the produce by almost 10 days. This will be done using large-scale equipment such as pre-coolers and ventilators. Funding such capex requirements is best done through debt," said Hari Menon, Co-Founder, SuperMarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd.
"Whilst we have access to equity capital, we are looking to optimise our capital structure. Venture debt is much cheaper than equity, especially on a post-tax basis and will help reduce our overall cost of capital. Also, it comes without any end use restrictions. We chose Trifecta Capital for our debt needs because of their knowledge of the start-up ecosystem, speed and flexibility. Besides, we hope to leverage Trifecta Capital's deep network of relationships to build a sustainable and profitable business," said Vipul Parekh, CFO & Co-Founder, SuperMarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd.
"bigbasket is the largest online grocery store in the country and has built a credible name across millions of households. The five founders - Hari Menon, V Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, VS Ramesh and Abhinay Choudhari have significant offline and online retail experience having previously built Fabmall and Fabmart-Trinethra. They have leveraged economies of scale, technology, supply chain and logistics, backward integration and product mix to create a viable, high growth business that is delivering significant value to customers. Unlike other online grocery businesses, they are a full stack player and have already broken even in some of the key markets like Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Besides, they are backed by very high quality and deep pocketed investors. We are excited to be part of their growth story," said Nilesh Kothari, Co-Founder, Trifecta Capital.
"Trifecta's strategy is to provide customized debt solutions to companies based on their specific business needs. We are also able to connect our investee companies to traditional businesses and banking channels. Several of our investee companies have benefited from leveraging our networks. Equally, our LPs are eager to find ways to collaborate with our investee companies. We are constantly looking for innovative ways to add value to our investee companies," said Rahul Khanna, Co-Founder of Trifecta Capital.
About SuperMarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd.:
SuperMarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd. owns and operates an online food and grocery portal bigbasket.com. It is the first comprehensive online grocery store in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Delhi, Noida, Mysore, Coimbatore, Vijayawada-Guntur, Kolkata, Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar, Lucknow-Kanpur, Gurgaon, Vadodara, Visakhapatnam, Surat, Nagpur, Patna, Indore, Chandigarh Tricity, Jaipur, Bhopal, Ludhiana and Jalandhar. It stocks over 18,000 products and 1000 brands including fresh fruits and vegetables, rice and daals, spices and seasonings to packaged bread, bakery and dairy products. The company was founded in 2011 and is HQ in Bengaluru. It is backed by marquee investors like Bessemer Venture Partners, Helion Ventures, Ascent Capital, Abraaj Capital and Sands Capital. For more information, please visit http://www.bigbasket.com.
About Trifecta Capital:
Trifecta Capital provides venture debt to new-age businesses across different stages of their development. It was founded by Rahul Khanna and Nilesh Kothari, seasoned professionals with over 50 years of experience in venture capital, structured finance and operations. Trifecta Venture Debt Fund is the country's largest Fund of its kind with a target corpus of Rs. 500 crores. Nearly 85% of the Fund's capital commitments are from large reputed institutions - Banks, Endowments, Insurance companies, DFIs and Business Houses. In 18 months since commencement of operations, the Fund has supported 18 companies like PaperBoat, Rivigo, NephroPlus, Urban Ladder, IndustryBuying, OneAssist, Urban Clap and IdeaForge, etc. Trifecta Capital differentiates itself in not only being able to understand business needs of its investee companies and suitably structuring its debt, but also in its ability to significantly leverage its LP network to create meaningful collaboration opportunities for its investee companies. RBL Bank and Azim Premji Trust are the Anchor Investors in the Fund. For more information, please visit http://www.trifectacapital.in.
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