Naturally Yours journey from a single store in Mumbai to a premier online portalNaturally Yours enable customers to access all organic stuff in one single place.

With more and more Indians preferring to consume organic food, India is witnessing haven of online retail ventures selling organic product, cropping up in past few every. Figures indicate that Indian organic food market is growing at a CAGR of 30 per cent and it is set to touch $1billion in 2015.

According to a report by India Organic Food Market Forecast & Opportunities 2017, majority of the demand for organic food is originating from Tier I cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Gurgaon and Pune. Companies are witnessing increase in sales as a result of increasing demand from metro cities and the entry of several new players in the organic food market offering an online channel for purchase.

Inception

Naturally Yours, an online organic food brand is also catering into the same space. Founded by husband and wife duo Vinod Kumar and Priya Prakash in 2010, Naturally Yours offers a platform to consumers to buy organic food products. Post completing his education in the UK, Kumar came back to India and realized that there are very few stores selling any organic or natural products. Hence, after a brief stint with a corporate house, he started Naturally Yours with Prakash who brings her passion for R&D, with a strong background of working as a molecular biologist.

The idea behind starting Naturally Yours was to enable customers to access all organic stuff in one single place. They started out as a brick-and-mortar model as they want customers to touch and feel the product, and then decide for themselves how different organic products were from the conventional ones they are used to buying from the local markets.

"Being an online first company has given us a huge exposure to customers across India. Today, we can proudly say that we have customers in every single state across India," said Kumar, Founder, Naturally Yours. The team works with hundreds of organic farmers and farmer groups across India to build a strong, reliable and ever expanding farmer network. "We ensure every farmer gets the fair deal and is profitable at his end. This is critical as this "honesty premium" ensures that the product is of excellent quality and is available consistently," said Prakash, Co-founder, Naturally Yours.

Funding

The Mumbai-based startup has recently announced raising an undisclosed amount in a seed round of funding from angel investor and serial entrepreneur Sanjay Mehta. With this investment, the venture plans to expand to new product categories and increase the product range. "The money will also be used to expand the core and the support teams as we plan to achieve a run rate of 10,000-15,000 orders per month in the next 12-24 months," said Kumar.

Commenting on the investment, Mehta said, "Naturally Yours founding team has a strong industry insight with disruptive brand and product ideas to sell online and become number one in Organic Food category in coming years."

Road ahead

The passion for organic and natural products has propelled Naturally Yours' growth from a single store in Mumbai to a premier online portal with services over 3000 pin-codes across India. "Demand for organic food is growing exponentially. Naturally Yours is the most credible organic food brand available online on leading market places. The target audience are urban health conscious millennials," shares Mehta.

The venture has more than 100 products in over 14 categories under its brand name, which sells on portals like Amazon, Flipkart, Shopclues, Healthkart, Pepperfry and many more. It also sells its products from its own website. "We are one of the leading brands on Amazon India in their health and gourmet section executing over 2,000 orders per month and we see this increasing over 30-40 per cent month-on-month" informed Kumar. They are majorly dealing in categories like Super Foods, Rice & Millets, Pastas, Organic Gifting, Seeds and Nuts, Ayurvedic and more.

With an aim to serve large customer base, Naturally Yours team intends to focus on selling purely through the online medium over the next 12-24 months. Further, the company plans to launch about 70-100 new products within the next 2 years.

Sector watch

Apart from Naturally Yours, in the month of July, Delhi-based JoybyNature had secured $1 million in Pre-Series A round of funding from Mumbai Angels, Contrarian Vriddhi Fund and a bunch of HNIs. Similarly, Natureland Organic Foods raised an undisclosed amount of funding from SIDBI Venture Capital's Samridhi Fund.

Last year, Parvata, an organic food company had raised $50,000 from Last Mile Accelerator. Prior to that, Organicshop.in had raised Rs 30 lakh in angel funding from Rajasthan Angel Investor Network. Although organic food usually costs up to 20 per cent to 30 per cent more than the conventional food items, the husband wife duo, within a span of 5 years, have successfully managed to leave their mark in a niche but rapidly growing segment.