Thirukumaran Nagarajan

Bio

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Thirukumaran Nagarajan is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience. He is the CEO and Co-founder of Ninjacart, India's largest fresh produce supply chain platform. He has also co-founded EduRaft, an education classifieds startup as well as Shout App, a location-based social network app earlier.

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He holds a Bachelor in Engineering degree from Chennai and an MBA in Finance and Operations from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode.

Startup Journey & Career Growth

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Thirukumaran started his career journey as a Manager of Infrastructure Debt Syndication at Axis Bank. In 2011, he co-founded an education classified startup along with Aarthi Ramasubramanian and Sharath Loganathan. Later in 2013, he founded the world’s first locality-based social networking app - Shout.

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Prior to founding Ninjacart, Thirukumaran was part of Taxi For Sure, the cab-hailing service that was acquired by Ola in 2015. He founded Ninjacart along with Ashutosh Vikram, Kartheeswaran KK, Sharath Loaganathan, Sachin Jose, and Vasudevan Chinnathambi in 2015. As a fresh-produced supply chain start-up that leverages technology to solve problems across different parts of the equation. He started the operation in the B2C model as a hyper-local grocery delivery startup. Later in September 2015, they decided to pivot to becoming a B2B supplier from farmers to Kirana stores.

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Over the years Ninjacart expanded its operations in 11 major cities across India and promise delivery within 12 hours.

Ninjacart Shareholders

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·  Tiger Global – 22.9%

·  Accel – 17.7%

·  ESOP – 5.7%

·  Nandan Nilekani & Family – 5.6%

·  Syngenta Group Ventures – 5.2%

·  T Nagarajan – 5.2%

·  Flipkart – 4.3%

·  GEC3 – 4.3%

·  Mistletoe – 3%

·  Jo Hirao – 3.5%

·  Tanglin Venture Partners – 3.8%

·  Ashutosh Vikram - 2.2%

·  KK Kandasarny – 2.2%

·  C Vasudevan – 2.2%

·  SB Loganathan – 2.2%

·  Qualcomm – 2.7%

·  Others – 7.3%

Awards & Recognition

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Received 'The Overall Supply Chain Solution of the Year' in the Agtech Breakthrough Awards, 2020.

Podcasts

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Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Co-Founder, and CEO of Ninjacart discuss how Ninjacart delivers over 1500 tonnes of vegetables and fruits to thousands of shops and retailers across multiple cities in India while raising the income of the 20,000+ farmers on its platform through fair prices with Anand Daniel, partner at Accel, in the INSIGHTS series podcast.

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You can listen to the episode here - Untold Seed Stories: First 500 Days of Ninjacart | SeedToScale

Quote

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“Stay close to the ground, do your work, work in your warehouses and trucks; that's where you'll learn the most. This will give you enough learning to build a more robust supply chain.”

·   Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Co-Founder, and CEO of Ninjacart

References

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·      People - Ninjacart

·      (99+) Thirukumaran Nagarajan | LinkedIn

·      Thirukumaran Nagarajan - Co-founder & CEO @ Ninjacart - Crunchbase Person Profile

·      Meet the Workaholic Problem Solver Whose Start-Up Is Reimagining India’s Fresh Produce Supply Chain (entrepreneur.com)

·      35under35 - Our Speakers (entrepreneurindia.com)

·      [Interview] Thirukumaran Nagarajan - Operating Ninjacart, Top Supply Chain Startup (startuptalky.com)

·      Exclusive: Ninjacart’s valuation crosses $500 Mn with new infusion (entrackr.com)