F5, a New Delhi-based retail aggregator building India’s first aggregated network of branded refreshment stores by partnering with existing refreshment vendors, announced that it has raised seed funding from Venture Catalysts, India’s first integrated incubator, according to YourStory report. Financial details of the funding remain undisclosed.
F5 was founded in 2018 by Raghav Arora and Lalit Kumar Aggarwal, and incubated by Gurugram-based incubator Huddle. F5 provides opportunities for its partner vendors to upsell and cross-sell their products, ranging from refreshments to services.
Commenting on the startup, Raghav Arora, Co-founder of F5, said, “Our consumers wanted us to have physical stores and be near them for their immediate needs. Just a couple of months back, we decided to cater to this demand by partnering with already existing vendors. We have so far partnered with 20+ such vendors, and have plans to partner with 5,000+ vendors within NCR only. For customers, we are a brand for their workplace needs that is fresher and more authentic. For our vendors, we have become their access point for multiple partnerships that can boost their business and revenues. F5 is also becoming a unique supply chain for many tech and non-tech consumer brands.”
Speaking on the investment, Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Founder of Venture Catalysts, said, “As emphasised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it is the time to revive our local industries and businesses that struggle to cope with larger brands despite offering quality products/services. F5 is doing exactly this – upskilling, as well as providing technology, delivery, and management support to local vendors and SMEs, while helping organise the highly fragmented workplace retail space.”
Recently in March, F5 raised an undisclosed seed round of funding from angel investors and micro-VCs, including LetsVenture, Madhusudan Kela-backed Singularity, Mohit Satyanand, Varun Laul, Tres Ventures, Huddle, and Startup Buddy.
F5 claims that it has successfully on-boarded 4,000+ paid consumers across Delhi and Lucknow, while enabling and optimising the revenue of these vendors.
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