Clover, an agritech startup, selling fresh fruits and vegetables to their customers has recently launched their direct-to-consumer app “Deep Rooted. Co” because the startup has decided to move away from a B2B (business to business) model to a focus on D2C business strategy.
The consumer brand “Deep-rooted. Co” is a cultivation app in supply chain solutions for the fruits and vegetables by focusing on their consistency, traceability, high degree predictability and the quality according to the startup.
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Deep rooted is designed to follow an Omni channel strategy which will cater to the preferences of the existing current shopping activities.
The Omni channel strategy will be used in the modern and the general trade segment. According to Avinash, the co-founder of Clover, the goal of Deep Rooted.Co is to make the startup India’s largest farmer.
The startup will facilitate the farmers with their full start agronomic intervention regarding the supply side with an Omni channel presence on the demand side.
Constant access to high quality fruits and vegetables with under three times increase in the yield to the farmers with the income improvements.
With 90 customers in almost 175 locations, in Hyderabad and Bengaluru head start, to the launch in the customer focused business to consumer brand, was experienced by the startup.
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The first research was conducted in September and October in 2020 and according to the results of the consumer behaviour of buying the fruits and vegetables, they observed that the consumer was more into fruits and vegetables buying when the shortage is observed.
According to Avinash, he said in a statement that people are reverting to what the situation was created during the lockdown. During the COVID period, people preferred grocery shopping, especially vegetables and fruits, from Kirana stores and modern trade stores.
Gururaj Rao, co-founder of Clover, the app is under operation for the startup and they are expecting to reach upwards to 90,000 app downloads by the end of the year.
The startup is also deciding to integrate their product nutrition in storage devices apart from shopping and regular promotion.
The startup has also decided to promote and inform people on key farming practices and accept requests for farm visit schedules for both traceability and transparency.
So, the startup is focusing on expanding their business and growing the distribution from 150 trade stores and setups around Hyderabad and Bengaluru to 500 stores and online facilities through the app and with the web e-commerce presence.
The fruits and vegetables supply will take place from 100 land hold farmers at lower scale and self owned greenhouse farms.
Funding
The platform has raised $5.5 million in Series A round which was held in February 2020 from VCs – Omnivore, and existing investors Accel and MayField.
Clover is now set to invest around $2 million in building the farmer-facing input-output technology while investing in the capacity is on the communication for the brand growth.
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