VMPL

New Delhi [India], October 24: Urvann, India's largest online plant nursery, has moved away from its earlier third-party nursery model and now grows, nurtures, and delivers plants directly from its own farms across Delhi NCR and Bengaluru. The company says the shift, which began in late 2024 and became fully operational in 2026, was driven by a need to fix the problems its customers were facing- inconsistent plant quality at delivery.

Founded in 2021 by Sambhav Jain, an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, and Akanksha Gupta, an alumna of ISB, Urvann started as a hyperlocal marketplace that connected urban plant buyers with local nurseries. The model solved the problem of long-distance shipping. But as the company scaled, the founders found that relying on outside vendors made it harder to control what reached the customer's doorstep.

'We started Urvann because we loved plants. That has not changed. What changed is what we learned along the way,' said Sambhav Jain, co-founder of Urvann, on why he transitioned from a third-party nursery to its own farms. 'When you depend on third-party nurseries, you can control the app, the delivery, the packaging. But you cannot always control the plant itself. That bothered us. It kept us up at night.'

Towards the end of 2024, the company carried out an internal review of its customer complaints. The data pointed to a clear pattern. A significant share of issues traced back to plant quality at the source. Plants were arriving from third-party nurseries in inconsistent condition, and Urvann's team had limited visibility into how they were being grown, stored, or handled before dispatch.

'We sat down with the numbers and the feedback. The answer was clear. If we wanted to fix this, we had to go back to the beginning. To the soil, the seed, the growing process itself,' Sambhav Jain said.

In 2025, Urvann began opening its Urvann farms. These are large, city-based nurseries located within Delhi NCR and Bengaluru. By 2026, the farms became fully operational and now form the backbone of the company's supply chain.

Each farm spans 1 to 3 acres. With 4 such farms across Delhi NCR & Bangalore, Urvann now manages 10 acres of farms. Together, they support over 50 lakh plants at any given time. Plants are sourced from growers across India and select international suppliers, then nurtured by horticulturists and plant experts who monitor health daily. Every plant goes through a health check before it is cleared for dispatch. The team monitors soil mix, root development, leaf condition, and pest exposure at every stage.

When a customer places an order before 7 PM, the plant is picked the next morning and delivered to their door the same day within 2 hours, free of charge. Plants are transported in electric vehicles, not sealed in boxes or shrink wrap. What arrives at the customer's door is exactly what was growing in the farm that morning.

Since the farms became fully operational, the company says customer complaints related to plant quality have come down. Urvann has also introduced a 48-hour resolution window for all quality-related concerns and a replacement guarantee for plants that arrive in poor health.

'If a plant reaches someone's home and it is not in the condition it should be, we take it back or send a new one. No delays, no back and forth,' Sambhav Jain said.

'We read every review, every comment, every message that comes our way. The feedback from our customers pushed us to ask hard questions about our own process. The decision to build our own farms came from listening, not from a boardroom strategy session,' said Akanksha Gupta, co-founder of Urvann.

Akanksha Gupta, whose own connection with plants began during the pandemic in 2020, personally oversees the quality standards at the farms.

'Earlier, we would receive plants from nurseries and forward them to customers. Now we watch them grow. We see the roots form. We know exactly how old the plant is, what soil it sat in, how much sunlight it received. That knowledge gives us confidence that the customer is getting something alive and strong,' she said.

Urvann currently delivers over 50,000 plants daily and has delivered more than 1 crore plants to date, serving over 15 lakh customers across Delhi NCR and Bengaluru. The company operates with a team of over 500 trained delivery partners and a growing in-office and farm workforce across both cities.

India's online plant market has grown steadily over the past five years, driven by younger buyers who want to bring greenery into apartments and small homes but do not have easy access to physical nurseries. The category saw a sharp rise during and after the pandemic, and the demand has held steady since.

Urvann's founders say the farm-first model is their response to the trust gap that exists in online plant buying. By owning the growing process, the company can set standards that a marketplace model cannot enforce.

'We are not running away from what went wrong in the past. We are building something that will not let those things happen again. That is the only honest thing to do,' Sambhav Jain said.

'Growth for us does not mean more cities right now. Growth means the person who orders a money plant from us in Bengaluru gets the same experience as someone ordering a monstera in Delhi. Consistency is our next milestone,' Akanksha Gupta said.

The name Urvann comes from two words: Urban and Vann (Sanskrit for forest). The founders say the name still captures what they are working toward. Bringing forests into urban homes, one healthy plant at a time.

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