How Ugaoo built a business out of saving people from killing plants

If you have not killed a plant or two, have you really learnt to keep a few alive?

Killing plants by over watering them is easier than delivering plant death by water deprivation. The number one reason people avoid gardening is the fear of being terrible plant parents. 

Siddhant Bhalinge’s mission for the last nine years has been to assure prospective plant parents that they can keep Ugaoo plants alive with minimal care. Today, the company has a 25-acre farm close to Pune in Talegaon, a 300-member team, and nine offline stores in Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru, and is targeting an annual recurring revenue of Rs 100 crore in FY25 along with being profitable.   

The company recently secured Rs 47 crore in its Series A funding round led by V3 Ventures, with existing investors DSG Consumer Partners and RPG Ventures. Bhalinge is not new to the business of plants and seeds. His family runs Namdeo Umaji, a vegetable seeds company established in 1885 that caters to farmers. The family scion, a 24-year-old Bhalinge, launched Ugaoo in 2015 with seeds for vegetable gardening in urban homes.

A landscape architect by education, Bhalinge wants to now be a complete gardening services provider tapping into India’s $11 billion home gardening market (as per Statista). It is a good time to encourage plant parenthood, the market in India is growing at CAGR of 30% YoY, it is poised to witness explosive growth and reach $18 billion by 2028.

Taking root

Ugaoo was born out of what Bhalinge saw in Italy. He observed that for Italians, gardening meant vegetable gardens where they grew herbs and vegetables. Upon his return to India, he started Ugaoo with the intention of selling seeds perfect for an urban vegetable gardener. For example, the tomato seeds Ugaoo sells result in small tomatoes that are sour and round in shape—not the hybrid kinds that one gets at the vegetable market.  

Bhalinge believes that potting solutions that address problems like rookie mistakes, such as overwatering and soil mixture that drains well, will deliver a consistent experience. “This will enable keeping plants alive for longer and will give people the confidence to take up gardening,” he says. 

A year into selling seeds, Ugaoo ventured into selling potted plants. Bhalinge realised that urban home gardeners preferred ornamental plants over growing vegetables. Now, 60-70% of the company’s revenue comes from its potted plants business. He says Ugaoo used plants as a gateway category to reach more customers. 

Ugaoo took the business of selling potted plants online just when young Millennials began curating their homes to look perfect on social media. They aspired to own a dramatic fiddle leaf fig plant for the empty corner in the living room, the humble pothos with a leafy trail for the bookshelf, and a succulent for the study table—the aesthetic that many social media handles promote. This trend soared during the pandemic years and a number of online nurseries have blossomed since. NurserlyLive, PaudheWale, Urvaan are online nurseries that are catering to the same demand that Ugaoo has spotted. As Bhalinge says, “Pets are the new kids, and plants are the new pets.”

Gardening or purchasing plants is mostly reliant on local nurseries or vendors who go door to door selling saplings and plants. What can consumers even desire from a brand that is not physically close to consumers? 

Bhalinge believes that potting solutions that address problems like rookie mistakes, such as overwatering and soil mixture that drains well, will deliver a consistent experience. “This will enable keeping plants alive for longer and will give people the confidence to take up gardening,” he says. 

In 2016, when Bhalinge proposed parceling plants, people asked, “But, how?” It all began with Bhalinge designing a container to transport plants. He put his architecture degree to work, spent about a month perfecting a design, and came up with a cylindrical container for the plant. 

“I am proud of this design,” he says, adding that the container that is designed with slits for aeration can withstand up to 50 kgs of weight, making them ideal for transporting plants without causing them any damage. The company has applied for a patent for this design. Most companies still use cuboidal containers to ship plants. 

Online nurseries aid experiementation with the added advantage of self-watering pots in which Ugaoo sells plants. Bhalinge says, often people order one plant and once they receive it, order a bunch of plants immediately. The experience of receving a plant in good condition encourages them to order a few more. 

Ugaoo sells plants on its own website, e-commerce marketplaces, quick-commerce apps, offline retailers and through corporate gifting. Interestingly, it gets 40% of its orders via Amazon and Flipkart while its own website and q-comm bring in 15% each in sales. The company sells about 12 lakh plants annually with a majority of the orders coming from Bengaluru and Mumbai. “Metros are high up there. We are seeing a rise in sales in NCR due to air pollution,” says Bhalinge.

Branching out 

After expanding Ugaoo’s product portfolio from seeds to plants to fertilisers to planters and gardening tools, Bhalinge is now eyeing the entire gardening market, from lawn mowers and inflatable pools to garden furniture and everything in between. Ugaoo already stocks barbeque grills; it will add more porch and backyard accessories soon. 

When he completed his architecture degree, Bhalinge hoped to work on the Ganga Rejuvenation Plan, but his meetings with bureaucrats took him nowhere. His dream of being a landscape architect has remained unfulfilled. 

But with a new vertical to take up landscaping projects for farmhouses and even airports, he hopes to fulfill his lifelong dream. Ugaoo has already worked on more than 100 farmhouse landscaping projects and has supplied plants to the new Bengaluru airport terminal. It has also secured the contract to supply plants for the upcoming Navi Mumbai airport terminal.  

Couriering a single plant sets Ugaoo back by Rs 100. Bhalinge says that packaging and shipping alone amount to 50% of the cost of a plant.

Offline expansion is another area Bhalinge is focussing on to scale Ugaoo. This directly contributes to reducing costs, increasing ticket sizes, and bringing more plant parents into his fold. Bhalinge informs that in-store purchases triple ticket size and customers return for new plants more often. 

“People love to spend time in our stores and browse plants. Most spend 45 minutes in a store,” he says. Kolkata, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Lucknow are where Ugaoo will set up offline stores next. The plan is to open 100 retail stores by FY30.    

Selling plants is a high-margin endeavour. In fact, Bhalinge says one can easily maintain a 70-80% profit margin in the nursery business. On average, plants on Ugaoo retail at Rs 350-400, whereas at local nurseries one could acquire potted saplings for about Rs 250-300. The retail price is a function of supply chain logistics. 

Couriering a single plant sets Ugaoo back by Rs 100. Bhalinge says that packaging and shipping alone amount to 50% of the cost of a plant. Right now Ugaoo has a farm near Pune and hubs in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore, and Kolkata. From these hubs, Ugaoo is able to reach a sizable Gen-Z and Millennial demographic that lives in India's big metros. Order a plant from Ugaoo, and it should reach you in two days’ time.

Having overcome initial hurdles with packaging and shipping plants, Bhalinge’s next big concern is making plants affordable. If he is able to expand his offline footprint and can reduce shipping costs, he will be able to offer high-quality plants to consumers at the price of local nurseries. Figuring out how to make that happen is what keeps him on his toes these days.