While urban consumers are hooked to 10-minute delivery apps like Blinkit and Zepto, Bengaluru-based KiranaPro is tapping into smaller cities and towns with its voice-led, multilingual platform that allows users to order from their neighbourhood provision stores.
Launched just three months ago, KiranaPro is operational in 35 cities with the majority of them in southern India, particularly Kerala. It has so far onboarded 30,000 kirana stores and plans to add 1 million of them this year.
A report by Datum Intelligence, published in November, said 46% of shoppers have cut back on purchases from kirana stores, as more consumers adopt quick commerce apps.
Kirana’s market share dropped from 95% in 2018 to 92.6% in 2023, and could fall to 88.9% by 2028, it said. Meanwhile, the quick commerce market is expected to surge from $6.1 billion in 2024 to $40 billion by 2030.
Unlike other quick commerce apps, KiranaPro does not hold inventory or operate dark stores. This is a no-commission, ad-led model, where kiranas use our tech for free, and brands pay us for visibility, said Deepak Ravindran, co-founder and CEO, in an interaction with Fe.
The platform is part of the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), which gives it access to 700,000 vendors across India and takes care of the delivery process. “We are doing 1,000 orders per day, and the average order value is around Rs 700. We have also crossed a million transactions on the platform,” he said.
Users can speak into the app in 35 Indian languages, asking for anything from “1 kg rice” to “ingredients for Biryani for 4,” and the system interprets and adds the ingredients to the cart. We’ve built a proprietary technology that works on a speech-to-cart model, removing the need for clunky add-to-cart flows, the founder explains.
The company also plans to launch K-Pro, a dedicated smartphone for kirana store owners, powered by a custom “Kirana OS” to help manage inventory, billing, and customer insights.
ONDC also powers much of the discounts given to the users on the platform, keeping prices competitive with quick-commerce players. The app also throws in surprise gifts via “cheat codes,” such as a free book with orders over Rs 1,000 in certain locations.
The startup has raised $187,000 in a funding round in November from investors such as Snow Leopard Global, Unpopular Ventures, Blume Ventures, and Turbostart. With another investment round in the works, KiranaPro is now eyeing deeper expansion across the country, and possibly international markets.