The new funding will support Wheelocity’s plans to expand operations across 20,000 towns and villages in southern India over the next year, aiming to reach a user base of 10 million, founder Selvam told ET.
Last year, the Chennai-based company pivoted from its previous business model, which focused on providing fresh fruits and vegetables to business-to-business (B2B) clients like quick commerce companies.
Wheelocity is now building a hybrid online and offline B2C commerce platform for semi-urban and rural consumers. Through this platform, users can place orders digitally or purchase products directly from a fleet of three-wheeled electric carts that deliver fresh produce to consumers’ doorsteps.
“For people living in semi-urban and rural areas, to get access to products as basic as fresh produce, they have to wait for as long as seven days. That’s how broken the supply chain is. We are trying to build near urban level convenience for semi urban and rural consumers by building a very high frequency, direct access network,” said Selvam.
Wheelocity’s fleet includes 1,500 three-wheeler electric vehicles and over 2,000 delivery partners. The company sources fresh produce directly from farmers, storing it in 60 micro-warehouse centers, known as ‘pit stops,’ for streamlined delivery.
Discover the stories of your interest
In 2022, Wheelocity raised $12 million from Lightspeed at a post-money valuation of $63.3 million, according to Tracxn. Anicut Capital also participated in that round.“The next wave of India’s commerce growth will come from beyond the top 200 cities,” said Rahul Taneja, partner at Lightspeed. “Wheelocity’s deep understanding of semi-urban markets, combined with their technology-first approach, positions them uniquely to capture this massive opportunity.”
Lightspeed has backed over 500 startups in the past two decades, including Razorpay, Zepto, Oyo, and Darwinbox, and manages $25 billion in assets globally.
