Supr Daily: Pioneering the grocery revolution in India
The e-commerce sector has always been commended for saving people the trouble of going out of their houses and standing in long queues. It becomes more useful in times of a pandemic when you don’t want to step out of your house.
While you can bulk up on groceries during the lockdown, the same doesn’t hold good for milk, fruits, vegetables, and coconut water. That’s where Supr Daily comes in and solves a true challenge by becoming “the Modern-day Milkman”.
The idea
Founded in 2015 by Puneet Kumar ( IIT-Bombay alumnus) and Shreyas Nagdawane (IIT-Bombay and IIM-Bangalore alumnus), Supr Daily is a subscription brand that has been burning the midnight oil to deliver daily consumable goods such as milk, bread, eggs, and coconut water to its users every day at the crack of dawn. With doorstep delivery and convenient subscription management, the Mumbai-based firm claims to have served more than a million orders to date.
Every household’s expenditure on daily essentials like milk form a large slice of their monthly budget, thereby bestowing a huge business opportunity, believes CEO and co-founder, Puneet Kumar.
Functioning
The company has adopted a direct-to-consumer model where they directly procure the goods from farmers and producers and delivers them to customers with zero additives. This allows the startup to bring down the per-order delivery cost to as low as ₹1–3 as compared to the e-commerce yardstick of ₹50. The sustainable business model has enabled Supr Daily to achieve operational profitability. "With no middlemen involved, we ensure that the milk that reaches you is not tampered with," reads a post on the startup's website.
Its full-stack approach in terms of sourcing, distribution, and last-mile delivery has enabled the startup to deliver delightful consumer experiences while making positive contribution margins on each delivery.
Praising the viable business model of Supr Daily, Kunal, Co-founder and CEO, Snapdeal said, “Supr Daily’s model is very uniquely Indian. The team has figured out the supply chain part so early on, which is usually the hardest and the most important part in any e-commerce business."
Competitive edge
Although not the first to make use of digitization for delivery of daily essentials in India, Supr Daily's milk-first tactic sets it apart in this saturated market, which is shared by the likes of Daily Ninja and MrNeeds.
Built to bring order to the exceedingly topsy-turvy cycle of morning milk deliveries, it also addresses quality issues around the product.
Funding
Given its sustainable business model and promising prospects, it is not a surprise that the startup has successfully raised a seed funding round of $1.6 million from a host of angel investors, including Y Combinator Partners Paul Buchheit and Jared Friedman. Several other angel investors including Dheeraj Jain (partner at Redcliffe Capital) and Harsh Rajgarhia (Overnite Express) also participated in the round. Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal had also placed early bets on this delivery startup.
Puneet said, “Having procured healthy unit economics, we will now be using the new capital to scale and expand to more cities in India. Since our burn rate is low, this money would give us a lot of runways to scale.
Addressing the covid situation in the country, Puneet said, “We want to make sure grocery is not the reason our customers step out at these times. Nothing brings us more joy than ensuring the safety of our customers and giving them the convenience to get everything they need, all at one place.”
