Online jewellery store Bluestone and e-grocery store BigBasket, which are both co-promoted by serial entrepreneur K Ganesh, are in the process of raising Series B rounds of funding of up to $10 million and $40 million, respectively.
K Ganesh and his wife Meena Ganesh are an entrepreneur and angel investor-duo.
Some of their biggest exits include selling BPO firm Customer Asset to ICICI Bank in 2002, and selling TutorVista to Pearson Education for over Rs. 600 crore.
Bluestone, which has become a source of contention in the restructuring of Bangalore-based jewellery biggie C Krishniah Chetty &Sons (CKC), allows shoppers to purchase jewellery online and competes with players such as Caratlane.
BigBasket, which is run on a daily basis by the founders of e-tailer Fabmart, on the other hand, is one of India’s only online grocery stores. Online grocery stores have been seeing big traction around the world, as recurring orders prop up the profitability of the niche e-commerce category.
“The Series B funding for BigBasket, which should close in the next three-to-four months, will be around $40- $50 million. We believe it has huge potential, with gross margins of nearly 20 per cent. Every order is profitable for us on BigBasket,” Mr. Ganesh told this correspondent on Monday.
“For Bluestone, funding talks are going on right now… it should be around $10 million,” he added.
Mr. Ganesh and his wife Meena currently run a home healthcare service provider called Portea Medical, which has nearly 2,000 patients so far.
“We have close to 500 staff right now, out of which most is medical personnel. We’re getting into data analysis. I’m really looking to see this through, and, hopefully, taking it forward to an IPO someday,” he said.
