CHENNAI: Mr. Milkman, a dairy tech start-up founded by Samarth Setia in 2017, enables its clients to track sales and customer consumption patterns by providing a real-time data-driven analytical dashboard. It takes the dairy’s operational data and customers onto an online platform and supervises the process — right from procurement of milk from farm to delivery. It also creates offline distribution channel hubs which help clients to manage transportation and delivery.
It all began when Samarth understood the problems faced by the local milkmen delivering to his home. He left his job at Mu-Sigma within two months of joining in 2015 in order to organise their operations. “I created a platform that digitised the accounts of the local milkman’s customers and automated billings for the local doodhiyas. Mr. Milkman’s job was to turn a local doodhiya to a technologically-advanced ‘Mr. Milkman’,” explains the 26-year-old founder.
Initially, Mr. Milkman’s platform connected local milkmen to consumers via the platform who delivered milk to over 2,000 subscribers daily for two years. Speaking of the research that went into this project, he says, “During this period, we implemented technology to the problem areas while testing their results live through their milk delivery operations. Our team operated along with the local milkmen daily at 4 am to understand the challenges and build the product.”
Mr. Milkman pivoted in 2017 from a Marketplace and evolved into a full-fledged SaaS (Software as a Service) platform that not only organises and automates the customer management for large and small-scale dairies, but also helps various dairies keep track of their operational processes by reporting sales anomalies and providing extensive reports. This helps dairies keep up with the trends of the industry as Mr. Milkman introduces better technology to other aspects of their business. “This platform ensures that there is an adequate application of modern technology in the dairy industry. With data security, transparency in approach and analytical inputs, dairies can now focus on production and growth while Mr. Milkman takes care of the entire supply chain management through a cloud-based platform,” he elaborates.
Currently, Mr. Milkman has 60+ clients across India and is approaching over 72 lakh litres of milk that gets managed via the platform. Some of the organisations Mr. Milkman is associated with are Milk Mantra, Whyte Farms, Amlaan A2 Milk, Himalayan Creamery, Go4Life, Milk Valley Farms, Binsar Farms Creamery, Mookie Moo, Holy Drops, Happymoo, Plenty Kart and Dely Bites.
“According to a report by Edelweiss Securities, India’s dairy industry is worth `5.4 trillion by value, having grown at 15 per cent CAGR during 2010-16. Going ahead, the dairy industry is expected to maintain 15 per cent CAGR over 2016-20, and attain a value of `9.4 trillion on rising consumerism. India is expected to emerge as the largest dairy producer by 2020,” shares Samarth.
With the motto to take the dairy industry, which forms a major part of the economy, in the rural sector, Samarth says that they wanted to reduce costs for dairy farmers through automation and analyse the most efficient form of managing a farm.
In a Nutshell
Mr. Milkman was founded by 26-year-old graduate Samarth Setia
They raised an undisclosed amount in their Pre Series A funding
They function in 12 locations including Hyderabad, Chennai and Delhi
In the next 18 months, they plan on expanding their business abroad to the US, Europe and Southern Asia