Mumbai-based online supermarket LocalBanya raises funding from BCCL's Springboard fund

Mumbai-based MN&C Supply Links Retail Pvt Ltd, which runs and owns LocalBanya.com, an online supermarket, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL)'s Springboard fund. The development was first reported by YourStory.

The funding will be used to expand the company's operations into cities like Pune and Delhi. It currently operates only in Mumbai. Techcircle.in tried to get in touch with the company for more details, but did not get any response till the time of posting this article.

The startup was founded by Karan Mehrotra (MD), Amit Naik (CTO) and Rashi Choudhary (COO)  in May 2012. Mehrotra studied computer engineering at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology, Mumbai, while Naik is a former Google employee and a IIM Lucknow graduate. Rashi Choudhary holds an MBA from SP Jain Global, Dubai, and has worked with Raymond as a retail executive. The Mumbai-based company has 60 employees.

LocalBanya offers close to 8,000 household products across categories such as fruits, vegetables, exotic vegetables, groceries, personal care, detergents and kitchen ware. The startup handles logistics and delivers between 9 am and midnight. It claims to have around 8,000 registered users and serves about 200 orders a day with an average ticket size of Rs 1,375.

Springboard fund was launched in 2007 and provides funding to growth oriented enterprises for long-term brand building needs. It funds companies across sectors; its portfolio companies include Indiamart, Infibeam, Homeshopbazaar, Gadgetsguru and iball.

The company competes with AaramShop, Ekstop, BigBasket, ZopNow and MyGrahak. Mumbai-based EkStop is now close to raising $2.5 million in its Series A funding while Bangalore-based e-grocery store BigBasket is also slowly scaling up to become a multi-city player. The firm, which started in December 2011, has expanded to Mumbai and Hyderabad within a year. It is now planning to extend its presence to the top 10 cities by December 2014.

The category also saw a casualty last year when ShopVeg, an e-grocery store, closed shutters.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)