Rural e-commerce startup Rozana raises ₹290 crore led by Bertelsmann India

₹290 crore in a Series B funding round led by Bertelsmann India Investments, as the company looks to deepen its presence and expand its rural storefront network, Ankur Dahiya, co-founder and chief executive told Mint.“We started in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and we feel its the right time to expand our footprint in the same Ganges belt,” said Dahiya. “Secondly, we want to increase our penetration in the areas we're present.”The fundraise comes as Rozana scales its hybrid rural commerce model—combining neighbourhood storefronts and centralized warehouses with a network of women-led last-mile partners—at a time when relatively few startups are focused exclusively on India’s rural e-commerce opportunity.The fundraise was led by German conglomerate Bertelsmann's local venture capital arm, Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) with participation from Fireside Ventures, US-based Spark Growth Ventures, FE Securities and a few family offices.The deal was majorly a primary investment with a small component of secondaries to give early angel investors an exit.

This is the second time BII has led the company's fundraise, the first one being in 2024, when the firm led Rozana's $22.5 million Series A round.It's worth pointing out there are not many rural-focused e-commerce startups. Data from Tracxn shows that there are only 82 companies in the segment.These include B2B players like Prosus and Softbank-backed unicorn ElasticRun as well as ShopKirana, which was acquired by Udaan in July last year.Of these, 16 have been deadpooled, i.e., shutdown, 43 remain unfunded, 8 remain at the seed stage, just three have reached a Series B round, while 8 are at Series A, and two have been acquired.