Food-tech startup FreshMenu in early talks with PEs to raise $75 million
Food-tech startup FreshMenu in early talks with PEs to raise $75 million

Online food delivery startup FreshMenu is in early talks with several private equity (PE) funds to raise nearly $75 million. The funding will be used by the Bangalore-based food-tech startup to fuel its expansion plans.

The firm is in talks with TPG, General Atlantic, Singapore's Temasek Holdings and domestic PE fund Kedaara Capital, among others, to dilute 25-30% stake. The process is being run by Kotak Mahindra Capital.

FreshMenu is looking for a valuation of $250 million in its new Series C round. The company was valued at $50 million in the Series B round in 2016.

The capital will be used by the company to set up more kitchens in markets like Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Gurugram and Mumbai. It is also planning to enter new markets such as Pune and Hyderabad.

Founded in 2014 by Rashmi Daga, FreshMenu currently operates 30 kitchens in Bengaluru and six in Mumbai. The startup has plans to add another 40 kitchens in Bengaluru, 20-25 in Mumbai and 40-45 in Delhi-NCR. It aims to have a total of 300 kitchens across India by 2020.

 
Stay on top – Get the daily news from Indian Retailer in your inbox
JustMyRoots Acquires the State Plate to Expand Regional Food Delivery
JustMyRoots Acquires the State Plate to Expand Regional Food Delivery
 

JustMyRoots, the intercity food delivery startup, has completed its acquisition of The State Plate (TSP), a company specializing in non-perishable packaged food products.

This strategic move is a pivotal step in JustMyRoots' overarching strategy to broaden its footprint within the nationwide packaged intercity food market.

TSP made a notable appearance on the first season of Shark Tank India and secured investment from Peyush Bensal, the CEO of Lenskart.

Furthermore, it successfully raised pre-seed capital from Antler India, valuing the company at approximately $2 million.

As part of the agreement, Muskaan Sancheti and Raghav Jhawar, the founders of TSP, will seamlessly join the JustMyRoots team and retain their roles in overseeing the business.

Samiran Sengupta, CEO of JustMyRoots, expressed that this acquisition marks a substantial step in their ongoing commitment to revolutionize intercity food delivery in India.

Former Indian cricketer Sourav Ganguly has recently acquired a minority share in JustMyRoots.

 

 

Next Story
SLAY Coffee adopts AR Technology to use India's first coffee recommendation engine
SLAY Coffee adopts AR Technology to use India's first coffee recommendation engine
 

Bengaluru-based coffee start-up SLAY has introduced the country’s very first Coffee Recommendation Engine in the form of an AR filter.

Coffee is one of the most dynamic beverages in the world that can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways. This constant development in the preparation style, flavours and combinations of coffee leads to an extensive menu with confusing names like Macchiato, Ristretto or Affogato - transforming the process of choosing a cup of coffee into a task, which only adds up to the worries of consumers rather than easing them.

By introducing its own coffee-recommending AR filter, SLAY Coffee intends to make this task of picking out a coffee an uncomplicated one. With a few quirky questions to better understand their coffee preferences - such as whether one drinks coffee with or without milk, flavours, hot or cold and so on - the AR filter will recommend a coffee that is perfect for the consumers’ needs and moods.

The filter is available on SLAY Coffee’s Instagram page. All one has to do is click on the filter, answer the four questions with just a nod of their heads and receive a coffee recommendation.

Not only that, but the filter also generates an exclusive coupon code that consumers can redeem during their next coffee purchase on Zomato.

Augmented Reality (AR) filters are computer-generated effects that work with the users’ camera, designed to be superimposed on real-life images and shareable on their social network.

With social media turning into an easily accessible medium with the tech-savvy generation, SLAY Coffee’s AR filter aims at reaching out to maximum coffee lovers to make their coffee discovery journey effortless. The filter offers them an opportunity to embrace new variants of coffee at the tip of their fingers, thereby creating an experience they want to repeat while bolstering the brand’s vision of democratizing great coffee.

 

Next Story
110के उपयोगकर्ताओं के फ्रेश मेनु के 2016 डेटा रिकॉर्ड का खुलासा
110के उपयोगकर्ताओं के फ्रेश मेनु के 2016 डेटा रिकॉर्ड का खुलासा
 

एचआईबीपी एक वेबसाइट के अनुसार, खाद्य तकनीक स्टार्टअप फ्रेश मेनु 2016 में एक डेटा कि चारों ओर 1,10,000 ग्राहकों की व्यक्तिगत डेटा उजागर सामना करना पड़ा है। ईमेल पते, नाम, फोन नंबर, घर के पते और उपयोगकर्ताओं के आर्डर हिस्ट्री जैसे व्यक्तिगत डेटा का खुलासा किया गया था।

कंपनी ने बताया कि यह डेटा उल्लंघन के बारे में जानता था, लेकिन प्रभावित उपयोगकर्ताओं को सूचित नहीं करना नहीं चुना गया।

एचआईबीपी एक मंच है, जो डेटा उल्लंघनों का डेटाबेस रखता है। यह इंटरनेट उपयोगकर्ताओं को यह जांचने है कि डेटा उल्लंघनों से उनकी व्यक्तिगत जानकारी से समझौता किया गया है या नहीं। मंच ट्रॉय हंट द्वारा बनाया गया था, जो माइक्रोसॉफ्ट में एक क्षेत्रीय निदेशक भी है।

रश्मि डागा, फ्रेश मेनु के संस्थापक ने कहा, "विश्वास आपके सम्बन्ध  को साझा करने का अभिन्न अंग है और हमें खेद है उस इवेंट के लिए जो कि इस विश्वास के साथ समझौता किया जा रहा है । उस पल में, हमारा  मानना ​​था कि जब से उल्लंघन सीमित था, हम ध्यान केंद्रित करेंगे मतभेदों को हल करने और यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए कि कोई और उल्लंघन न हो।"

"डागा ने स्पष्ट किया  "ग़ुम जानकारी की वजह से "नाम, ईमेल-आईडी और फोन नंबर का समझौता करना पड़ा। इस समय के दौरान किसी भी बिंदु नहीं था कि इस तरह के उपयोगकर्ता पासवर्ड या भुगतान संबंधी जानकारी हो और उसका  उल्लंघन किया गया हो । हमने  हमेशा पीसाई डीएसएस अनुपालन करने वाली विधि भुगतान जानकारी स्टोर करने के लिए सुरक्षित भुगतान सहयोगियों के साथ काम किया है उनकी तरफ से सिस्टम और यह बिल्कुल सुरक्षित है। भले ही, यह स्पष्ट है कि हम इस जानकारी को उसी समय हमारे उपयोगकर्ताओं को सूचित कर सकते थे।"

 

 

Next Story
FreshMenu's 2016 Data Breach Exposed Records of 110k Users
FreshMenu's 2016 Data Breach Exposed Records of 110k Users
 

As per a website haveibeenpwned (HIBP), the food-tech startup FreshMenu has suffered a data breach in 2016 that exposed personal data of around 1,10,000 customers. Personal data such as email addresses, names, phone numbers, home addresses and order histories of users were exposed.

The company told that it knew about the data breach but chose not to inform the affected users. 

HIBP is a platform which maintains a database of data breaches. It lets internet users check if their personal information has been compromised by data breaches. The platform was created by Troy Hunt, who is also a regional director at Microsoft.

Rashmi Daga, Founder of FreshMenu, said, "Trust is integral to the relationship we share with you and we regret the event that led to this trust being compromised. In that moment, we believed that the since the breach was limited, we would focus on resolving the vulnerability and making sure that no further breaches happen."

"The stolen information comprised of names, email-ids and phone numbers. At no point during this time was information such as user passwords or payment related information, breached. We have always worked with secure payment partners to store payment information in PCI DSS compliant systems on their side and that is absolutely safe. Regardless, it is clear in hindsight that we could have communicated this information to our users at that time," Daga clarified.

 

Next Story
Zomato buys Bengaluru-based startup TongueStun Food for $18 million
Zomato buys Bengaluru-based startup TongueStun Food for $18 million
 

Online food ordering and restaurant discovery platform Zomato has acquired a Bengaluru-based startup TongueStun Food. The cash and stock deal is fixed at about $18 million. Tonguestan works as an online marketplace and is a caterers and restaurants aggregation platform.

The startup has so far raised less than $5 million from Uniqorn Ventures, a hospitality fund run by investment bank o3 Capital, and Haresh Chawla, a partner at private equity fund True North.

Deepinder Goyal, Co-founder & CEO at Zomato, said, "We don't see the ceiling to how big this market could become just yet. What we know is that this market is very high frequency, and customers are very sticky as they end up placing more than 20 orders a month on the Tonguestun platform." 

Founded by Manjunath Ramkrishnan in 2012, TongueStun has over 1,000 curated food partners along with 1,500 companies on its platform in six cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Gurugram, and Pune.

Zomato will integrate TongueStun app into it. TongueStun’s acquisition will help it to scale its business in the corporate segment.

The TongueStan acquisition for Zomato marks its 12th such deal. Last year, the company, in one of its bigger deals, had acquired hyperlocal logistics startup Runnr to add muscle to its delivery capabilities.

 

Next Story
Food startup Sattviko raises strategic funding from marquee investors
Food startup Sattviko raises strategic funding from marquee investors
 

A packaged food startup Sattviko has raised an undisclosed amount of strategic funding from marquee investors. The investors include Helion Venture founder Ashish Gupta, former EY India Head Sunil Chandiramani and other senior private equity professionals.

Set up in 2014, the company had raised its Pre-Series A investment in September last year from a clutch of investors led by Raman Roy, Nasscom's Chairman. The company plans to expand into Dubai and US.

Prasoon Gupta, Co-founder of Sattviko, said, “Our next step is to initiate our Dubai and US operation. Over time, we will endeavour to penetrate across geographies and borders, introducing the Sattwik taste of Indian-origin recipes and healthy food items to the world.”

Sattviko has presence in 10 major cities in India and across all large retailers like BigBazaar, More, Hypercity, Easyday, Spar, Metro, etc. The startup claimed that it used the earlier fund amounts to grow six times in FY 2017-18. Sattviko now aims to touch Rs 50 crore mark in FY 2018-19.

 

Next Story
FreshMenu Opens First front facing Kitchen at Bangalore airport
FreshMenu Opens First front facing Kitchen at Bangalore airport
 

Food tech start-up Freshmenu has opened its first front facing kitchen at Bangalore airport as it looking to double down on expanding its order base. With this, Freshmenu has now 35 cloud kitchens across Bangalore Mumbai and NCR and is looking to increase the count to 40-42 in the next four months.

Rashmi Daga, CEO of Freshmenu said "In the last 6 months, we have doubled our footprint in Mumbai, opened a lot more kitchens. In this last month alone, we have opened 5 kitchens including the one at the Bangalore airport, Claims to have enough money in the bank to continue (investing for) capex behind the kitchens. With an increase in kitchens, Freshmenu is targeting a 2x growth in revenues even as it chalks out a path to profitability. Trajectory to profitability is very strong. We will be profitable at the net level within 1 year".

Daga also stated that, however, he has no plan of opening more front-facing kitchens with the newer kitchens focussed only on the existing 3 cities. Lightspeed Venture Partners backed firm currently clocks 13,000 orders per day with an average order value at Rs 325, just shy of the Naspers backed Swiggy which clocks orders worth Rs 350 on an average.

 

Next Story
Box8 bags 50 crore INR funding from IIFL Seed Ventures Fund & Mayfield
Box8 bags 50 crore INR funding from IIFL Seed Ventures Fund & Mayfield
 

Box8, one of the India's fastest growing food delivery start ups has raised Rs 50 crore in funding from IIFL Seed Ventures Fund & Mayfield.

Box8 is a full stack online food delivery player that claims to specialize in preparing and delivering delicious Indian food at an affordable price.

Started by two IIT graduates Amit raj and Anshul Gupta, Box8 now serves 12000 meals every day to its large consumer base through a network of 60 stores across three cities Mumbai, Pune & Bangalore.

Its diverse menu consists of over 100 dishes in All-in-1 Indian meals, biriyanis, wraps, sandwiches and Salads.

Box8 manages an operational team of 1200 plus to operate its full stack approach model which helps them bring efficiency in each fraction of the business.

 

Next Story
Also Worth Reading