BeWo Technologies, a start-up in financial inclusion and social impact space, is in the process of raising Rs.100 crore to expand its operations, a top official said.
R. Sampath, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, BeWo, said “we are in talks with several private investors from California and India to raise the money.
“The process is on and will be completed in six months. The money will be used primarily for nationwide acquisition of stores, innovation and product development.”
BeWo, short for Better World, was incubated by California-based chipmaker Qualcomm.
The venture is also backed by TTK Group Chairman T.T. Jagannathan in his personal capacity and he will be contributing towards its development.
On Tuesday, Mr. Sampath rolled out BeWo Genie, an IT-enabled retail point-of-sale (PoS) delivery and support system to help kirana (neighbourhood shops selling groceries) shops compete with general provision stores, shopping malls and online firms. Using this ecosystem, Fast Moving Consumer Goods majors can keep track of grocer’s daily billing transactions, consumer preferences, last mile marketing activities and promotions.
The Android-based PoS comes with built-in printer, barcode scanner, 3G and UPS.
With the help of PoS, the grocer can print the bill, maintain inventory, keep a tab on store credit and carry out marketing promotion at the same time.
Only those kirana shops that have billing of Rs.10 lakh per month are being considered by BeWo to include in its network.
“By bringing FMCG and grocers on a single platform, we help them to efficiently manage their business and reach higher sales and revenue. With the help of cloud-based dashboard, FMCG can manage accounts and do direct marketing promotion of a product to a particular segment/store. Kirana shops will also be able to offer discounts or one-for-one products like supermarkets,” he said.
Mr. Sampath said right now, they were present in four cities viz Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai and New Delhi through 5,000 grocers. Their plan was to penetrate all the Tier-II and Tier-III cities and serve 8 million grocers over the next two to three years.
“Currently, PoS are imported from China. As and when we reach the scale, we will start assembling them first and then start manufacturing in Tamil Nadu. About 70 per cent of the product would be sourced locally while rest would be imported. Initially, we plan to manufacture about 1,000 machines per month,” he said.
