SUCCESS OF DAIRY STARTUPS IN INDIA
How milktech startups came to spearhead the second wave of hyperlocal daily delivery in India
From Milkbasket and DailyNinja, to Doodhwala, several milktech startups have had a taste of success based on a simple subscription model of daily essential delivery. So far in 2019, the segment has seen funding activity to the tune of over $25 million. What has led to this sudden investor interest?
Sindhu Kashyaap & Debolina Biswas,Jul 22, 2019 ,Pashudhan praharee network.
While veganism may be finding takers everywhere else, India cannot do without its piping hot filter coffee in the morning and dollops of ghee through the day. The country is the largest consumer of dairy in the world, and will soon corner over a fourth of the global consumption. But with such a large market, inefficiencies are bound to exist. Paying close attention to what consumers want is the crop of ‘milktech’ startups that ensures people can get milk delivered right at home every morning.
With hyperlocal milk delivery startups following the ‘dark supply and operational model’, a bottle of creamy milk can be delivered to your doorstep (and to everyone else’s in your apartment) even before the break of dawn. So painless is this process that you don’t have to check out the previous night when you add stuff to your online cart, or even key in your payment details.
Needless to say, this model’s high customer stickiness and touch point have made it a lucrative segment to start up and invest in—so many players have emerged in the space. And investment has been flowing like milk and honey: over $25 million has been poured into hyperlocal milk delivery startups already this year, up from over a million from 2018.
In the last three years, MilkBasket has raised the maximum funding, that is $34 million; followed by Country Delight at $10 million.
Milking the dairy-loving market
So why the sudden interest and activity, when Indians have always had milk delivered to their doorstep like clockwork?
“The market size is too vast and big to ignore. It is an innate habit of every Indian household to get milk delivered in the morning,” says Sagar Yarnalkar, Co-founder, DailyNinja, a Bengaluru-based hyperlocal milk delivery app backed by Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, and Saama Capital.
Bringing this large market online, therefore, became the next logical (and lucrative) step for startups focusing on hyperlocal delivery.
“In India, fresh milk has been functioning the same way for the last couple of decades. The first revolution happened with Amul but no one has tried to tackle the distribution problem. At some point we felt that we want to bring substantial chunk of India online. Milk is a very big opportunity out there,” says Aakash Agarwal, Co-founder of Doodhwala, which delivers more than 30,000 litres of milk every day before seven am in Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad.
Courtesy–YOURSTORY.COM
