Startup Deep Dive : Ripplr — moved Rs 1,164 crore in FY25, still lost money doing it

Ripplr moved ₹1,164 crore ($121 million) worth of soap, biscuits and shampoo through India’s kirana stores in the year to March 2025 — and still lost ₹91 crore doing it (Entrackr, November 2025). Six years after two supply-chain veterans set out to fix the country’s most fragmented distribution channel, the company built to make general trade efficient has yet to make itself profitable.

In November 2025, State Bank of India — a lender that almost never buys equity in a startup — put money into Ripplr’s $45 million Series C round, pushing its valuation to $230-250 million, more than double what it was worth in 2023 (TechStory; HDFC Sky, November 2025). The number the round doesn’t explain: how a business that spends ₹1.08 to earn every rupee of revenue gets there.

Quick facts

What they do

Ripplr sells distribution as a service to consumer goods companies. Instead of a brand building its own network of stockists, salesmen and delivery vans to reach kirana and general trade stores, it hands that job to Ripplr, which runs warehousing, last-mile delivery, order-taking and payment collection through its own tech stack and field force. The company’s four in-house applications — for salesmen, pickers, delivery and collection — are meant to give a brand the same visibility into a Ripplr-run market that it would get from an in-house team (Fireside Ventures blog, 2023). Clients span large, established FMCG companies — Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Nestlé, Godrej, Dabur, Reckitt Benckiser, Mondelez, Britannia and Colgate-Palmolive among them — alongside newer consumer and new-commerce names such as BigBasket and Zomato (Inc42, November 2024).

The origin

Abhishek Nehru and Santosh Dabke started Ripplr in 2019 carrying, in 3one4 Capital’s description, “decades of distribution & logistics experience” from companies including Croma, Flipkart, Whirlpool and Philips (3one4 Capital blog, 2021). Their read on the market was specific: India’s direct-to-consumer channel had seen years of innovation, but general trade — kirana stores, which still account for the bulk of the country’s FMCG sales — had not. Large, established FMCG companies had spent decades building distribution networks that newer and smaller brands simply could not replicate, which meant that however good a brand’s product or its online marketing, it could not compete on the shelf of the corner store (3one4 Capital blog, 2021). The founders’ bet was that this distribution layer could be rebuilt as shared infrastructure: one professional, tech-run network that any brand could plug into, rather than each brand assembling its own patchwork of regional stockists. It is a business model that depends on scale to work — a distribution network is only valuable to a brand if it already reaches enough retailers — and that dependency shapes everything that follows in Ripplr’s numbers.

The struggle years

The early read looked good. Ripplr says it scaled revenue four times over in Bengaluru alone in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and reached operating profitability within a year of launch, as brands leaned on organised distribution partners while informal supply chains buckled under lockdowns (3one4 Capital blog, 2021). That early promise did not survive contact with national scale. By the year ended March 2022, filings show Ripplr’s revenue had grown to ₹275 crore — but its net loss for that year was ₹91 crore, against an EBITDA margin of -32% and a return on capital employed of -101%, the weakest unit economics the company has disclosed (Entrackr, April 2024). In other words, for every rupee of revenue the business brought in that year, it burned roughly a third of it. A second setback followed two years later: after cutting losses sharply in FY23, Ripplr’s net loss widened again by 43.5% to ₹89.15 crore in the year ended March 2024, even as revenue grew 39% to ₹1,028 crore — proof that scaling the network faster did not, on its own, fix the margin problem underneath it (Inc42, November 2024).

The turning point

Between those two setbacks sat one clean year. In FY23 (year ended March 2023), Ripplr’s revenue nearly tripled to ₹740 crore from ₹275 crore the year before, a 2.7x jump — but, unlike the pattern before and after, losses fell rather than rose, dropping 32% to ₹62 crore. EBITDA margin improved from -32% to -7.4%, and ROCE from -101% to -29% (Entrackr, April 2024). It was the one year Ripplr’s numbers matched its pitch: growth without a proportional rise in losses. That improvement gave the company a credible growth-with-discipline story to take to investors, and a month after the FY23 numbers became public, Fireside Ventures led a $40 million Series B round into the company (Entrackr; 3one4 Capital blog, May 2023). The FY24 relapse that followed shows how hard that improvement was to hold onto at greater scale.

The money behind it

Ripplr has raised more than $101 million to date across at least four institutional rounds (Entrackr, November 2025):

• Series A — $3 million, closed January 2021 (Crunchbase funding record).
• $12 million debt-and-equity round — December 2021, from Sojitz Corporation and Stride Ventures alongside existing investors 3one4 Capital and Zephyr Peacock, plus angel investors including Licious co-founder Abhay Hanjura (Inc42, December 2021).
• Series B — $40 million, May 2023, a mix of equity and debt. Fireside Ventures led the equity side with participation from FMCG players Bikaji and Neo Foods alongside existing backers 3one4 Capital, Zephyr Peacock and Sojitz Corporation; the debt side came from Stride Ventures, Alteria Capital, Northern Arc Investments and Trifecta Capital (Inc42; Business Standard, May 2023). This round reportedly valued Ripplr at around $100 million (~₹880 crore) (HDFC Sky; TechStory, November 2025).
• Series C — $45 million (~₹400 crore), announced November 2025, with State Bank of India entering as a new investor alongside existing backers 3one4 Capital, Zephyr Peacock and Sojitz Corporation. Around $30-32 million came in as fresh primary capital, roughly $10 million was a secondary sale, and $3-5 million was debt (Entrackr; DealStreetAsia, November 2025).

Among the backers, three stand out for what they changed rather than just the cheque they wrote:

• 3one4 Capital — an early and recurring backer since roughly the Series A stage, and, per an April 2024 disclosure, one of the company’s largest institutional shareholders at 17.87% (Entrackr, April 2024).
• Sojitz Corporation — the Japanese trading house first invested in December 2021 and separately announced its own entry into India’s consumer goods and food distribution business the following month, signalling a strategic as well as financial relationship (Sojitz Corporation, January 2022).
• State Bank of India — India’s largest lender took equity in the Series C, a rare move for the bank into startup capital that multiple outlets read as a vote of confidence ahead of a possible listing (TechStory; DealStreetAsia, November 2025).

How it makes money

Ripplr’s marketing language — “asset-lite,” “tech-first,” “plug-and-play” — reads like a software business. Its FY25 accounts read like a wholesaler’s:

• Goods sales made up ₹1,068 crore, or 92% of FY25’s ₹1,164 crore gross revenue — Ripplr is booking the sale of the FMCG stock it moves, not just a service fee for moving it (Entrackr, November 2025).
• Logistics and warehousing fees account for the remainder, roughly ₹96 crore, or about 8% of FY25 revenue (calculated from Entrackr, November 2025).
• Cost of materials (the FMCG stock it buys and resells) was ₹1,018 crore in FY25, or 81% of total expenditure — up 14.5% year on year (Entrackr, November 2025).
• Employee benefit costs fell 33% to ₹40 crore in FY25 from ₹60 crore in FY24, one of the few cost lines the company pulled down (Entrackr, November 2025).
• Cost per rupee of operating revenue was ₹1.08 in FY25, an improvement on ₹1.10 in FY24 but still above breakeven (Entrackr, November 2025).

The part people get wrong: because Ripplr sells itself on technology and reach, it is easy to assume its revenue comes mainly from service or platform fees charged to brands. The filings say otherwise — the overwhelming majority of revenue is the trading margin on goods Ripplr itself buys, warehouses and resells, which means its economics are closer to a stockist’s thin margins than to a software company’s, however good the four apps underneath it are.

The numbers

Four years of disclosed financials show revenue scaling steadily while losses have moved unevenly around it, never quite closing (figures in ₹ crore; Entrackr, April 2024 and November 2025; Inc42, November 2024):

Revenue has grown more than four-fold in three years. The net loss for FY25, in absolute rupee terms, is almost identical to the loss the company posted back in FY22 — on a revenue base more than four times larger.

Where the money comes from

• Revenue mix — goods sales: 92% of FY25 gross revenue; logistics/warehousing services: about 8% (Entrackr, November 2025).
• Owned network footprint — 24 warehouses concentrated across five states: Maharashtra, Delhi, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, as of the FY24 filing (Inc42, November 2024).
• Retailer reach — grew from over 80,000 tier-2 retailers as of the FY23 filing (Entrackr, April 2024) to about 100,000 retailers by November 2025 (3one4 Capital blog, November 2025).
• Client base — a mix of large, established FMCG principals (Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Nestlé, Godrej, Dabur, Reckitt Benckiser, Mondelez, Britannia, Colgate-Palmolive) and newer consumer or new-commerce accounts such as BigBasket and Zomato (Inc42, November 2024).

The surprise sits in that first bullet. A company that pitches itself on data, apps and retailer relationships earns the overwhelming share of its money the same way a traditional stockist does — by buying and reselling physical stock — rather than by charging brands for the software and reach it has built around that stock.

The risks

• A margin structure that hasn’t turned, even at scale. Cost per rupee of operating revenue was still ₹1.08 in FY25, only marginally better than ₹1.10 in FY24, and EBITDA margin has stayed negative in every year disclosed from FY22 (-32%) through FY25 (-5.88%) (Entrackr, April 2024 and November 2025). Revenue quadrupling since FY22 has not, by itself, been enough to flip the model into profit.
• Limited pricing power over its own biggest cost. Ripplr’s largest expense line is the FMCG stock it buys from the same large principals — Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Nestlé, Godrej, Dabur among them (Inc42, November 2024) — whose products it resells. Those companies can multi-source their distribution and negotiate terms, leaving Ripplr with thin, principal-set trading margins on the goods that generate 92% of its revenue (Entrackr, November 2025).
• Quick commerce is drawing volume out of the channel Ripplr depends on. A Kearney study cited by Storyboard18 found general trade and kirana stores have been losing sales to quick commerce platforms, with kirana discounting running at just 2-5% against quick commerce’s 6-9% (Storyboard18, June 2025). Ripplr’s retailer network is overwhelmingly general trade, so a structural shift of grocery spend away from that channel is a headwind to the retailer base it exists to serve.

The takeaway

Ripplr’s six years are a useful correction to a common assumption in distribution-as-a-service pitches: that digitising a fragmented supply chain automatically improves the economics sitting underneath it. Ripplr has genuinely modernised how FMCG goods move to Indian kirana stores — better fill rates, real-time visibility, four purpose-built apps, a network that has grown from a handful of cities to close to 100,000 retailers. None of that has yet been enough to turn a rupee of profit, because the business, by its own accounts, earns its revenue as a low-margin reseller of physical goods rather than as a fee-charging technology layer. The transferable lesson for anyone building “as-a-service” infrastructure on top of an old-economy trade: look at where the revenue is actually booked, not just at the software wrapped around it, because that is where the margin — or the lack of it — really sits.

Frequently asked questions

What does Ripplr do?

Ripplr is a Bengaluru-based, tech-enabled distribution company that runs warehousing, field sales, delivery and payment collection for FMCG brands, giving them access to general trade and kirana retailers without building their own distribution network (Fireside Ventures blog, 2023).

Who founded Ripplr, and when?

Abhishek Nehru and Santosh Dabke founded Ripplr in 2019 in Bengaluru, bringing what 3one4 Capital describes as decades of distribution and logistics experience from companies including Croma, Flipkart, Whirlpool and Philips (3one4 Capital blog, 2021).

How much funding has Ripplr raised, and who backs it?

Ripplr has raised more than $101 million as of November 2025 across a Series A, a debt-and-equity round, a Series B and a Series C. Investors include 3one4 Capital, Zephyr Peacock, Sojitz Corporation, Fireside Ventures and, most recently, State Bank of India (Entrackr, November 2025).

Is Ripplr profitable?

No. Ripplr reported a net loss of ₹91 crore on gross revenue of ₹1,164 crore in FY25 (year ended March 2025), and has posted losses in every year disclosed since at least FY22 (Entrackr, November 2025).

What is Ripplr’s valuation, and is it planning to list?

Ripplr’s Series C in November 2025 reportedly valued the company at $230-250 million, up from about $100 million in its 2023 round (HDFC Sky; TechStory, November 2025). An investor blog has floated a possible IPO within 18-24 months, but Ripplr itself has not confirmed listing plans, so this should be read as reported and aspirational rather than confirmed (3one4 Capital blog, November 2025).

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• Entrackr, “Ripplr reports Rs 91 Cr loss on Rs 1,164 Cr GMV in FY25” — November 2025
• Entrackr, “Ripplr posts Rs 740 Cr gross revenue in FY23; controls losses” — April 2024
• Entrackr, “Ripplr raises $45 Mn from SBI and existing investors” — November 2025
• Entrackr, “Logistics startup Ripplr bags $40 Mn in Fireside-led Series B round” — May 2023
• Inc42, “Ripplr’s FY24 Net Loss Widens 43.5% To INR 89.15 Cr” — November 2024
• Inc42, “Distribution And Logistics Startup Ripplr Raises $12 Mn To Expand Network” — December 2021
• HDFC Sky, “Ripplr Funding Round Nears ₹400 Cr Led by SBI, Valuation Doubles” — November 2025
• TechStory, “Ripplr Set for a Major Leap: SBI Leads ₹400 Cr Funding Round” — November 2025
• DealStreetAsia, “Indian logistics startup Ripplr raises $45m in Series C round from SBI, others” — November 2025
• Business Standard, “Distribution & logistics platform Ripplr raises $40mn to expand footprint” — May 2023
• Fireside Ventures blog, “New-age distribution for consumer brands: Introducing Ripplr” — 2023
• 3one4 Capital blog, “Why we invested in Ripplr” — 2021
• 3one4 Capital blog, “Ripplr closes $40 Million in Series B Funding, aims to increase India Footprint” — May 2023
• 3one4 Capital blog, “From Fragmented Rails to Full Stack Reach: Ripplr Raises $45 Million” — November 2025
• Sojitz Corporation, “Sojitz Enters the Distribution Business for Consumer Goods and Foods in India” — January 2022
• Storyboard18, “Quick commerce disrupts India’s grocery industry, kirana stores hit hard: Kearney” — June 2025
• Crunchbase, Ripplr Series A funding round record — January 2021

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