Rozana, a rural-commerce startup, has raised $22.5 million to fulfil the unique local demands of a billion Indians outside the scope of online commerce.
The funding round was led by Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) with participation from Fireside Ventures and existing investors, including 3one4 Capital.
Founded in 2021 by Ankur Dahiya, Adwait Vikram Singh, Mukesh Christopher, and Prithvi Pal Singh, Rozana aims to leverage tech and data science to tap the potential of rural markets, with 300-500 million first-time online commerce users that could contribute to around half of India’s GDP.
Currently, the rural-focused e-commerce platform reaches more than 12,000 villages across 13 districts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, facilitated by a network of approximately 18,000 peer partners, commonly referred to as last-mile partners, who are able to earn additional income.
“With this funding, we will continue building out our logistics and supply chain infrastructure to reach new districts and empower rural communities with access to essential products,” said Ankur Dahiya, CEO and Co-founder, Rozana.
The startup claims that over 90% of the rural-focussed platform's consumers are first-time e-commerce users, with an overwhelming majority of peer partners being women who primarily fulfil the responsibility of consolidating orders and making deliveries within local communities, typically comprising 30 to 40 households.
"The opportunity in rural India is greatly underappreciated," said Rohit Sood, Partner at Bertelsmann India Investments, which led Rozana's current funding round.
Rozana's hyperlocal e-commerce model—which utilises village-based “peer partners” to make last-mile deliveries while providing rural customers convenience and affordability through door-step delivery—"offers a possibility to create meaningful impact in millions of lives", per Sood.
The round also saw significant participation from Vivek Gupta, Co-Founder of Licious, who now serves on the Rozana's board.
“I travelled to remote villages and was very impressed to see the aspirations and key pain points of the consumers. Rozana is building an impressive model for that part of India which has been largely outside the scope of the tech revolution," said Vivek.
Rozana, in a statement, also said that it will be working "very closely" with Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal’s xto10x, which helps e-commerce ventures find scale and growth with warehouse design, last-mile delivery, technology, category launch and more.
