BazaarNXT technology-driven packaging marketplace - soaring success for Indian startup amid a slowdown

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], Feb 10 (ANI/Digpu): BazaarNXT, a Bengaluru-based startup, is soaring to new heights as it has continued to grow and expand amid the talk of a slowdown in the Indian economy.
"Founded in 2019, the procurement startup is a one-stop solution provider that aims to fulfill all restaurant and food delivery partner packaging needs. With just one year in operation, its client list includes Swiggy, FoodPanda, InnerChef, GrowFit, Carbs and Calories, and restaurants like Anjappar, Southern Spice, and Hyderabad Chefs among others," said Vikram Raja, Head of Operations at BazaarNXT.
Interestingly, BazaarNXT has been witnessing more demand than supply even during a time when the fear of slowdown prevented many startups from foraying into the Indian market. This didn't happen as 'a blessing in disguise' but a thoughtful strategy to use the plastic ban to its advantage.
The idea of BazaarNXT:
As soon as Dhananjay and Gaurav, founders of BazaarNXT realized that food packaging was the make or break factor for home delivery of food items, they thought of the startup. Although they made their mind for this endeavour in 2017 the idea finally became a reality only in early 2019.
The Team:
Dhananjay, along with Gaurav Badarkhe started ShopClients Consulting Services in January 2017. ShopClients addressed the basic problems associated with the restaurant procurement space.
The duo eventually hired Vikram Raja, former co-founder of Bengaluru-based laundry startup RinseUp. The trio then decided to narrow their focus to address major issues that restaurants face when it comes to packaging material supplies and rebranded the company as BazaarNXT.
Dhananjay, 30, is a seasoned entrepreneur. He has more than seven years of experience across hyper-local, logistics, food and beverage, and training domains.
He also holds an MBA in finance. Gaurav, 23, who decided to skip formal education after Class 12, currently heads technology development at BazaarNXT. Vikram, who previously worked as an Assistant Manager at Edu-tech unicorn BYJU's, leads the operations at BazaarNXT.
At present, BazaarNXT has tech, purchase, sales, new product development and R&D teams.
The eight-member purchase team, headed by Palash Saha- graduated from IIT Kharagpur who has earlier worked with Amazon and Parcto, handles the Pan India Procurement for BazaarNXT.
"We have also roped in Manoj Sreenivas- ex c-founder of Panda Packaging to lead the branding and customization vertical," said Vikram Raja.
The startup also has 20-plus people working at the micro and master fulfillment centers, to handle last-mile operations. "We help with the sourcing, technology, and marketing; our partners bring in capital and teams to manage last-mile operations," said Dhananjay.
The startup takes care of complete packaging solutions for restaurants, including carry bags, aluminum foil containers, tissue papers, thermal rolls, bagasse, and paper-based products, and tea/coffee flasks, among others.
BazaarNXT's Products:
1. Engineering is the closest thing to magic that exists in the world. F&B packaging is a heavily unorganized market and has seen almost no innovation over the last few decades. Our main focus is building technologies to solve these problems at scale. We have built an efficient robust supply chain which is powered by our demand prediction engine and smart inventory manager. This ensures that our fulfillment centers are always stocked enough to satisfy the demand in real-time. We always try to solve a problem through "First Principle", we break down complex problems into core building blocks and build technology solutions against those problem statements.
2. We are able to make an impact on the way these restaurants procure their packaging materials from the local unorganized vendors with the support of our products below.
"ProcureNXT: Customers place orders or subscribe to our offerings on the ProcureNXT platform. This helps us in demand prediction and auto-replenishments.
KreditNXT: An AI-enabled technology platform to assess and grant credit limits to our customers. The KreditNXT application also enables NBFCs and bill-discounting players registered on the BazaarNXT platform to directly transact with our customers.
CreateNXT: The CreateNXT application is for the new product development to replace the plastic-based materials with sustainable packaging solutions. It handles the complete end-to-end lifecycle of any new product which is being developed at BazaarNXT.
DezignNXT: We believe packaging is the most important aspect of brand marketing. If it doesn't attract the right audience, you won't have a business. We help to build our customer's vision into reality, creating something beautiful that customers will fall in love with. DesignNXT is a web-based platform in-built with Reprographics, color management, and artwork management" - Says Gaurav, Co-founder & CTO at BazaarNXT.
The staggering numbers of BazaarNXT:
The startup has served more than 5,000-plus retail restaurants and delivered 13,000-plus orders since March 2019.
According to the founders, the number of SKUs that the startup sells is over 400. This number is continuously evolving and exponentially growing, based on customer demand. The 25 member sales team interacts with 6000 plus customers and onboard 1500 plus new customers every month on to its platform.
BazaarNXT's overall sales are growing at up to 30 percent month on month. While the startup refused to share revenue numbers, they claim to be getting at "USD 5 million to USD 6 million ARR by March 2020."
Recently, BazaarNXT raised US USD 4,50,000 from a bunch of angel investors from Singapore and India, including Suresh A Mahadevan, CFO at SureCash; Saad Ahmed, Director of BD and Partnerships at GrabFood; Kiren Tanna, Co-founder of ZenRooms; Suresh Kumili, Head of Alternate Delivery Models at Delhivery; Shubhrendu Koche of Finablr; and Vidit Agrawal from Stripe.
Capitalizing the burgeoning opportunity:
The startup is also working on diversifying its offerings into segments such as packers and movers, and small-scale electronics manufacturers. "We are also working on adding another 8,000 to 10,000 restaurants before March 2020," said Dhananjay.
Meanwhile, BazaarNXT is looking to raise its Series A funding to capitalize on the ever-growing opportunity, the startups head executive says.
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