AnKa SumMor Raises INR 11.6 Cr Pre-Series A Led By Inflection Point Ventures With new funds, AnKa SumMor plans to build industry first tech solutions in S&D and scaling business in Hyderabad and Chennai, as well as for expanding operations to Bengaluru

Bengaluru-based sales and distribution (S&D) enablement platform AnKa SumMor on Wednesday announced to have raised INR 11.6 crore in Pre-Series A led by Inflection Point Ventures (IPV). Marquee angel investors like Pratul Shroff from Waao Partners, Brijesh Agrawal of IndiaMART, and other leading industry figures have also participated in the round.

This investment will predominantly go into geographical expansion, building the tech stack critical to managing complexity at scale efficiently and effectively, and enhance predictive capabilities to provide market insights to brand partners. The brand will also invest in increasing infrastructure and resources to increase the number of outlets serviced to deliver growth for brand partners.

"We are excited to have IPV and angel investors on our cap table. S&D enablement players will play a pivotal role in fuelling the burgeoning Indian retail market which is projected to touch $260 billion in the next 4-5 years. Anka SumMor is poised to redraft the traditional playbook by offering professional S&D solutions to improve the overall value chain and provide protection against risks such as continuity due to attrition, trade spend leakages due to lack of transparency to challenger and new age brands," said Ashok George, co-founder and chief executive officer, AnKa SumMor Foods Pvt. Ltd.

AnKa SumMor is on a mission to democratize the offline market by re-engineering the conventional FMCG S&D model to transmit similar scale leverage & benefit of legacy brands to challenger / new age brands through a technology-enabled shared "Plug & Play' distribution platform.

"Success of FMCG businesses depends on how well and deep their distribution model is. India is a complex geography and it has taken global FMCG companies decades to cover the entire country by heavily investing in setting the distribution infrastructure. The new age brands don't have to invest millions in setting up their distribution channel when a company like Anka SuMor can do this for them. A shared distribution network would be mean lower operational costs and better pricing for the consumers. We understand this sector well because of our other investments and were able to align naturally to Anka SuMor's vision," explained Vinay Bansal, founder and chief executive officer, Inflection Point Ventures.

Incubated and funded by Fireside Ventures in April 2018, the startup founded by Ashok George and Rajiv Joshi provides emerging, challenger brands like McVities, Wai Wai, Yoga Bar, Yellow Diamond, Bauli, Tru Earth, Om Bhakti, and Paper Boat among others, access to modern trade outlets, supermarkets and specialty stores at half the S&D costs they would have otherwise incurred by doing it on their own.

"'When Fireside started investing in early-stage consumer brands in 2017, we realized that getting products on retail shelves was a huge pain point for SMEs. And this represented a large national business & investment opportunity for us. Ergo we partnered with Ashok and Rajiv to build a professionally run, tech-enabled distribution company specially focused on emerging brands with a vision that would level the playing field both on access to retail shelves and on the cost of access. From those initial beginnings in a Fireside meeting room, the company has come a long way, starting with its Hyderabad operations, then establishing itself in Chennai, and now launching in Bengaluru. We are delighted that they have completed this funding round which will enable them to bring in the full power of technology to deliver on the business vision," added Kannan Sitaram, partner, Fireside Ventures.

The platform has grown during and post the pandemic by 65 per cent and now has more than 12 brands benefiting from its S&D solutions covering over 8,000 retail outlets across Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bengaluru and plans to exit FY22 covering 23,000 retail outlets with an ARR of INR 60 crore. Over the next 5 years, the startup aims to establish its operations in 15 cities and coverage of 200,000 relevant retail, achieve an operational break-even in FY 2023, and deliver INR 500 crores in annualized revenue in FY 2025.

In April 2021 AnKa SumMor raised INR 3 crore as a part of its pre-Series A round and now with this new additional investment of INR 8.6 crore the round is closed at INR 11.6 crore.