Kirana Retail Chain 'GULLY NETWORK' Raises INR 5 Cr From Orios Venture Partners

Gully Network Retail, a tech-enabled chain of small-format kirana stores has announced the closure of its seed round of INR 5 crore from Orios Venture Partners, India’s leading seed-stage venture capital fund.. Having started in August 2019, Gully Network brings a unique tech-enabled platform that transforms a small-format business into an omnichannel modern store making the store’s experience as well as business model more competitive. 

Gully Network has been founded by Ajay Nain and Prateek Chaturvedi, alumni of IIT Madras and IIM Ahmedabad, with a vision of organizing the unorganized offline retail stores which comprise nearly 95% of the grocery retail category today, despite the presence of large format stores like MORE, Spencer’s and Big Bazaar as well as online grocery brands that have come up in the past few years largely in the metros. 

Small format Kirana stores number close to 15million in the country and suffer from issues of uniformly modern customer experience, lack of data-based reordering, static margins, rising costs of wages and rent and being offline, are unable to take advantage of discoverability on online delivery players by consumers preferring that channel. Under Gully Network, these stores will be able to address all these issues and thus, behave like a large and modern chain of stores. Gully Network currently operates in Bengaluru and has 25 stores in its chain and aims to have one store in every one kilometre radius across the country. 

Commenting on the fund-raise, Ajay Nain, Founder, Gully Network Retail said, “In the last few years, the Indian grocery retail ecosystem has witnessed new solutions, such as B2B supply, POS, and Finance. However, there is none to solve 360-degree pain points of retailers and their hyperlocal consumers. Retailers still waste hours comparing prices on B2B apps and following up with traditional distributors. On top of this, they have to manage day to day operations and handle customers. We take care of Sales, Margins, Finance, Inventory, Merchandise and Additional Income for the retailers in our network. We ensure an increase in net income of retailers with no day to day hassles while enabling them, through technology, to behave like modern format stores end to end.”

“We are excited to partner in this journey with Anup Jain from Orios Venture Partners who brings in vast expertise and in-depth knowledge of the retail and FMCG sector. We look forward to a fruitful association here,” added Ajay Nain, Founder, Gully Network Retail.

Commenting on the fundraise, Anup Jain, Managing Partner at Orios Venture Partners said, “ Indian grocery retail market is approx 70% of total retail market in India today- a staggering $500+ Bn p.a.. However, we have seen little transformation on ground in the 15 million small format kirana stores which comprise over 90% of this market even today. We are excited to invest in the strong team @Gully Network Retail which has the potential to lead this transformation through technology and form the largest chain of modern format small stores in India”