Bollywood actor and singer Lucky Ali and a city-based entreprenuer have invested in Tribe Nation, an online marketplace for farm-grown products, which has commenced operations in Bengaluru.
Powered by farmers, Tribe Nation would deliver groceries and fresh farm-grown products from local farmers, to customers via a convenient app model, while eliminating inconsistency in prices, Ali, its co-founder and brand ambassador, told PTI here.
By 2018 financial year end, the online marketplace aims to clock a turnover of USD 300 million (nearly Rs 2,000 crore), he said.
Tribe Nation is an app with a subscription-based model that allows customers to directly buy hand-picked, hand cleaned, fresh, farm-grown products from rural farmers, Ali said.
Starting with Bengaluru, the team aims to add Hyderabad and Pune to its list in the coming year, he added.
Ali said Tribe Nation is unique in that he would like to call ethical-commerce where both farmers and customers benefit and prosper together.
"We do not want to be called as a startup as well because their philosophy is of raising funds and exiting. That is not our philosophy. We would like to call our Tribe Nation as ethical-commerce," he said.
"Tribe Nation will help our farmers make better margins at reduced cost to the customer," he added.
Tribe Nation, however, would be raising funds not for exiting but to grow as a company, Ali said.
"We will be raising funds, not from the usual venture capitalists or investors, but from companies who are into agricultural business for long," he said.
The funds raised would be used to get new agri technolgies which would benefit farmers to produce their crops scientifically, Ali said.
"We are in talks with a Middle East country to put to use agri technologies," he added.
Tribe Nation already has 100 plus farmers on board and 700-plus yearly subscriptions in the last 60 days of its soft launch and has raised funds internally, founder and managing director of Tribe Nation Uma Mahesh said.
The core team of 20 professionals have been diligently working on this for the past four years and now they are ready to launch it in the city, Mahesh said.
After the initial trial phase, the venture plans to launch a digital marketing campaign and direct reach programmes encouraging more people to use the app, the Tribe National director said.
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