Pepperfry is an Indian online furniture marketplace based.
Before starting Pepperfry, Ambareesh Murty earlier worked as country head for Ebay India and Ashish Shah as Head of Ebay Motors-India and Philippines. Ambareesh Murty spent over five years at eBay, and the last 3.5 years He was its CEO. He had a rocking time at eBay and saw the potential for e-commerce in India. After spending his time at eBay he considered what he should be doing. He thought fundamentally the opportunity in India is huge.
When he changed his LinkedIn status to read ‘starting up’, a whole bunch of people reached out to him. They caught up and interacted and figured out if they were thinking of the same thing – building a great, lasting business. That kind of got him started. And because he got a chance to work again with people whom he had worked with in the past, the initial stage of not having funds became a little bit easier, because they were all in it together.
He put in an initial fund, and their initial expenses were towards getting infrastructure and product development teams, via partners. They also got investment from Norwest Venture Partners. When they were hunting for a good name, they asked themselves what’s truly Indian? They came up with spices. Hence pepper. It’s truly Indian! They added fry to bring fun element. But it was sounding like a foodie brand. So they went and talked to folks who have built successful foodie business. They interviewed owner of Britannia Restaurant (famous Parsi joint), Bade Miyan etc and asked them how they built business, what pepperfry means to them.
They have three warehouses –in Jodhpur, New Delhi, Mumbai. For the last mile logistical system as of now, they will rely on partners. They have tied up with Blue Dart, Aramex, Gati, and other couriers, depending on nature of products.
