India’s retail landscape presents a compelling contrast. While organized chains like Reliance, Spencer’s, and Metro have redefined shopping in major cities, their presence in Tier 2 and 3 towns remains limited. In these regions, millions of consumers still rely on traditional mom-and-pop kirana stores, which are long-standing community fixtures that, while dependable, haven’t evolved much in terms of customer experience.
This creates a significant opportunity: to reimagine retail for Bharat by blending the trust and accessibility of local kiranas with the convenience and innovation of modern retail.
Founded in 2019 in Bengaluru by Anil Thontepu and Neeraj Menta, SuperK Supermarkets solves the “missing middle” in India’s retail market. Its model centers on small-town families and makes money through wholesale margins, aligning the company’s fortunes with store performance and customer satisfaction.
Anil says, “Even in small towns, people are consuming the same digital content as in big cities and looking for better experiences. Tea stalls have become cafés, barbershops are now salons, and medical stores look like Apollo Pharmacies. Grocery, being the largest market in the country, was the next clear opportunity for us to transform.”
SuperK has raised approximately $11.7 million in a Series B funding round led by Binny Bansal’s 3STATE Ventures and Mithun Sancheti, founder and former CEO of CaratLane. Anil Thontepu shares the nuances of building supermarkets for India’s tier-3 and tier-4 cities.
Bridging the Missing Middle in Retail
Anil explains, “There’s a lot of manpower that goes into those stores because they have to run every day, almost 18 hours a day. The number of people needed, the backups they have to plan for, and the inventory safety they need to build all of this means they are better off operating slightly larger format stores for their P&L benefit. That’s why they haven’t been able to penetrate the smaller towns of India as much as they would have wanted.”
“In this entire setup, the customer is left out. The customer wants a better experience but is stuck. With that insight, we started asking ourselves how we could bridge this gap, and we realized that franchise-operated models would be the best way to build this business.”
Franchise-operated model: Where Local Operators Replace Store Managers
SuperK identified this missing middle as an opportunity, and to solve for the gap, they created a a franchise-driven supermarket model supported with technology. The logic behind their model simply boils down to scale. While a single small-town grocer can’t build advanced supply chains, deploy tech systems, or run large marketing campaigns, an aggregator can.
By creating these capabilities once and spreading them across many stores, SuperK unlocks efficiencies that no independent shop could manage alone.
“These operators are usually small business owners already used to running their own shops, often with family support if needed. Since they invest directly in inventory, they are more attentive to sales and stock management.”
“We focus on things that benefit from scale, like technology, marketing, and supply chain. The parts that don’t gain from scale, such as retail operations and running the storefront, we leave to the local entrepreneur. That way, we get the best of both worlds: we function like an organized player, but operate in a decentralized way. This setup ultimately unlocks more value for the customer.”
The Data-Driven Play Behind SuperK’s Growth
Super K’s target customers are small-town families with a monthly household income of ₹25,000 to ₹95,000, typically four to six members, and a dry-grocery basket of around ₹3,000. While the earlier user journey to purchase products used to be list-based, SuperK came in and changed the game by letting families walk the aisles and opened up the door for discovery.
The core of Super K’s model lies in its algorithms, which turn everyday shopping into a stream of personalized nudges. Every purchase feeds the system with signals:
1.What do customers buy regularly?
2.What products can be clustered together?
3.What category of buyer do they fall into?
“If someone consistently chooses green tea, the system tags them as a ‘premium’ customer and automatically unlocks offers around healthy snacks or high-end product launches.”
Anil says, “We’ve seen patterns where if a customer buys cashews, there’s a high chance they’ll also buy raisins. So when someone picks up only cashews, our system nudges the store partner to suggest raisins as a combo at a better price. It’s personalization powered by data, and that’s what makes the upsell and cross-sell work.”
Super K’s Unique POS systems
"I've been a product person my whole life, and my core belief is that technology is expensive if you don’t know what to build, but it’s very cheap if you do."
“Large POS screens often overwhelm small retailers. So we built an Android app that runs directly on a swipe machine device. This made the technology less intimidating and helped retailers adopt it much faster.”
By making personalized, app-only offers that could only be redeemed through the POS system, customers had a strong incentive to download and keep the app. Store staff reinforced this by guiding shoppers to check their offers on the app. Over time, the app became even stickier with a built-in loyalty program that let customers track bills and points, ensuring repeat usage.
To engage customers, SuperK leverages the data it collects through its platform’s backend, using systems like BigQuery and Metabase. They track customer behavior and generate insights. From there, communication happens across multiple channels: WhatsApp messages via Yellow.ai or Facebook integration, SMS alerts, push notifications through AWS Pinpoint, and even IVR calls.
By joining social channels or providing their phone numbers, customers willingly opt into these touchpoints, eager to stay aware of deals and trends they might otherwise miss.
“These customers are more than happy to give away their phone numbers and be part of such channels because they would want to know more about offers and what you know. People in the cities have a problem with”
Building for Tier 3-4 Customers: Discovery and Trust
When SuperK first launched its consumer-facing product, the team assumed a simple web version would be enough. They believed people would find the platform, check offers, and engage. Within the first two weeks, however, it became clear that this approach wasn’t working. Traffic was low, and even active in-store offers weren’t translating into app interactions.
The problem wasn’t the offers themselves. It was discovery. In small towns, customers rarely use Google Search to find products. For them, “search” happens in the Play Store. If an app isn’t visible there, it effectively doesn’t exist.
Anil recalls, “People weren’t using the app, so we called a few customers. They knew about the offer on a product they bought, but they couldn’t find our app. In these small towns, people search for apps in the Play Store, not on Google. Everything I had learned about product discovery over the past decade suddenly didn’t apply.”
SuperK quickly pivoted, building a mobile app using Flutter for Android and iOS, making it accessible where customers were actually looking. Adoption picked up almost immediately. Store partners also played a critical role by observing customer behavior and reporting challenges invisible to the digital team.
Another surprising insight came from testing seemingly minor features like OTP verification. The team had assumed that extra steps for order collection or loyalty point redemption would frustrate users. But for these shoppers, OTPs were a sign of control and trust. Customers felt reassured that their products hadn’t been tampered with, and these small security steps made them more comfortable using the platform.
Anil explains, “We thought OTPs would create friction, but for them, it was a vote of confidence, a way to ensure no one had tampered with their product. These small steps helped users feel more secure and trust the platform more than before.”
Measuring Success and Looking Ahead
SuperK measures its product success through a mix of scale and transaction quality. The company tracks monthly active customers with an average basket size is another key indicator, with loyal shoppers spending roughly ₹3,000 each month.
Currently, over 100,000 users shop with Super K every month.
On emerging technologies, Anil points to AI as the most significant shift shaping early-stage startups in this space. For SuperK, the focus is on using AI to build engaging content, whether that’s reaching customers through social media, SMS, or WhatsApp, or creating clear, actionable communication for franchise partners and ground staff.
“It’s about making sure the message lands in the right way, so customers stay engaged and our teams on the ground can deliver the outcomes we expect,” he says.
