BHUBANESWAR: From helping households order essentials from the comfort of their homes to providing market linkage to small vendors for growing their business, an entrepreneur from Cuttack has transformed home delivery in Odisha through his startup Grozip.
Started by Ananda Mishra six years back, the startup connects small vendors with households through Grozip app and supports them in their business by ensuring smooth delivery of home essentials. The company now connects more than 9,000 small kiranas (vendors) with the households in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Rourkela and has become a source of livelihood and employability for many.
“It all started when I was working with the startup ecosystem of a tech company in the US and finding home delivery of groceries for parents back at home in Cuttack got extremely difficult,” Mishra said.
As many other firms were doing well in this field during the period, Mishra discussed the idea with his friends and launched the start-up in Odisha in 2016. The startup provided small vendors a marketing platform, technology, and logistic support for the delivery of products as well as a credit facility up to Rs 50,000 to grow business.
Initially, the vendors were reluctant to be associated with the company but as awareness of the online business opportunities grew, many came forward to connect.
This helped them maintain their business during the Covid-19 pandemic as the online platform expanded their customer base from a particular locality to the entire city. In terms of business, this helped the company grow by four times.
From a core team of four including Mishra and his three associates Surya Narayan Singhari, Asha Mishra and Sonali Behera, the startup now has a team of 42 including 11 management and 27 delivery staff. It has joined hands with OMFED and Adisha to deliver quality products to the customers.
With over one lakh orders and delivery so far, the firm had been featured in top 100 start-ups of India in 2021 and was one of the best 40 in the world to get mentorship from Jack Ma, co-founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba.
“With support from Startup Odisha, Grozip became one of the top 20 start-ups from India to represent the country at the Expo 2020 in Dubai recently,” Mishra said.
“With India’s internet consumption increasing at 400 pc, we want to make the most of this opportunity in tier 2/3/4 cities where there is a huge demand for home delivery services,” Mishra said.
The start-up is planning to expand its services to Sambalpur, Berhampur, Balangir, Barbil and other cities and towns of the State in the coming days. Besides, there are plans to include more female riders in the system for delivery of products at doorsteps.