Suminter India Organics raises funds from responsAbility's PE arm

Optimistic Capital, an Indian investment firm founded by ISB alumni, has introduced the country's first Rs 200 crore microbrewery-focused fund. The fund aims to provide investors with a unique opportunity to enter the growing microbrewery sector, focusing on key hospitality markets such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune.

The microbrewery fund is designed to capitalize on the rising profitability of craft beer establishments and the sector’s overall growth. Industry projections indicate that by 2030, the number of microbreweries in India could exceed 1,000, marking a threefold increase from 2024. In Bengaluru, where there are currently over 80 microbreweries, most report profit margins above 20 percent. Furthermore, international alcohol companies are actively investing in and partnering with local microbreweries to expand their presence in the Indian market.

Bengaluru's regulatory environment has also played a role in the sector's growth, with the government extending operating hours for F&B outlets to 1 a.m. and easing licensing requirements. The minimum space needed for microbreweries has been reduced from 10,000 sq. ft. to 6,500 sq. ft., making it easier for new entrants to join the industry.

Jeff Jose, General Partner at Optimistic Capital said, "The microbrewery sector in India is witnessing significant growth, driven by the increasing demand for craft beers and experiential dining. With more tier I and tier II cities experiencing this shift, our fund is positioned to leverage the opportunities in this growing sector."

Karthik Chandrasekaran, General Partner at Optimistic Capital and Co-Founder of several microbreweries added, "Microbreweries offer a unique environment that caters to a wide range of consumers, regardless of age or socio-economic background. The larger space required for beer production, combined with the flexibility to adapt menus and craft beers, ensures the long-term viability of the microbrewery model compared to traditional F&B formats."

Optimistic Capital's fund is backed by four founding partners, each bringing a diverse range of expertise. Karthik Chandrasekaran, co-founder of URU Brewpark, GCBC, and Record Room in Bengaluru, has extensive experience in the microbrewery space. Jeff Jose has a background in sales and marketing at Kellogg Company in Africa and has advised CXOs of Burger King and Popeyes in the APAC region. Varun Krishnan, with corporate finance and project management experience at Siemens, has managed large-scale microbreweries, focusing on financial strategy. Edwin Daniel has led revenue at Branch International, a $600 million micro-bank, and had successful exits from Myra (acquired by Medlife) and Branch.

The Rs 200 crore fund represents a significant step for Optimistic Capital in advancing India’s microbrewery sector within the hospitality industry, tapping into the increasing demand for craft beer and diverse dining experiences.

Prime Venture Partners has made an investment of Rs 6 crore in FoodyBuddy, a platform that enables consumers to sell home-cooked food. The funds raised will be used by the company to expand into new geographies and build the network in Bengaluru.

Presently, FoodyBuddy is operational in Bengaluru. It is looking to expand to five other cities in the next 12 months.

FoodyBuddy brings together home chefs and consumers in the same neighbourhood. Residents of more than 100 apartment communities in Bengaluru are using the platform that has sold over 2,50,000 meals.

Akil Sethuraman, Co-founder, FoodyBuddy, said, "Today, close to 20,000 households use FoodyBuddy and more than 1,000 people are selling. We believe that food brings people closer and encourages a friendly, healthy and interactive community."

"The aim is to foster this by providing both sellers and buyers with a network through which they can address their requirements," he added.

Biryani by Kilo (BBK) is planning to raise close to $6-8 million in Series A funding in a bid to aid its expansion. The restaurant chain also aims to cross Rs 100 crore in topline by 2020.

The company's statement stated, "BBK has a strategic plan to expand into select international markets like UAE and the UK in the next three-five years, and build a network of over 120 outlets."

Kaushik Roy, Chief Executive Officer of BBK, said, "BBK has the potential to create a global footprint by positioning biryani as an Indian counterpart to the western burger and pizza."

In June 2018, BBK had raised a Pre Series A investment led by Ajay Relan, founder of CX Partners.

Brewhouse, the maker of bottled ice tea brand, has received $2 million funding from Singapore-based FMCG Group Food Empire Holdings, Positive Food Venture Pvt Ltd.

In November 2017, Food Empire Group had invested $6,00,000 in Positive Food Ventures. The group is operational in more than 24 countries.

Siddharth Jain, Founder of Brewhouse, said, "At Brewhouse, we are passionate about providing a better-tasting and healthier beverage option to consumers who are looking for alternatives to soft drinks. Currently, we are present at over 2,000 points of sale in major cities and are expanding our operation pan India. We plan to invest the loan amount from Food Empire Group towards expanding our reach to 10,000 points of sale in 2020 and to introduce newer and interesting variants."

Food Empire Group started operations in Delhi in May 2017. Recently, the brand expanded to more than 10 cities including Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Lucknow. It is retailing with over 300 restaurant & café partners.

Gurgaon-based Comfort Food Brand Hoi Foods has raised $500 k in a Pre Series A led by 1Crowd and its investor community. The company plans to utilize funds for geographical expansion and building a more integrated food solution in the backend.

The recent round of funding also saw the participation of other investors including Gemba Capital and Prime Holdings.

Indrajeet Roy, CEO, Hoi Foods, said, "Hoi Foods can be a food brand which can reach 100 cities in the next 4-5 years. The biggest challenge of any food brand is geographical expansion and to be present in every location where there is demand. Hoi’s asset-light model ensures multiple distribution points across the city."

Anil Gudibande, Co-founder of 1Crowd, said, "Hoi has a perfect combination of youth energy, strategic advisory, and F&B Subject Matter Expertise. Hoi Foods is bringing standardization in the comfort food segment on cuisines and promising a brand of taste, quality, consistency, variety, convenience and affordability to the budget hotels sector, which is currently completely unorganized and therefore carries huge potential."

Hoi Foods is creating an F&B footprint in multiple locations with standardized service levels and infrastructure. Currently, the company is based out of Delhi/NCR and is looking to expand to different cities very soon.

Rebel Foods, owner-operator of internet kitchen brand Faasos, is in talks with investors to raise a little more than $100 million.

The fund raising is a part of the company's plan to enter overseas markets and expand both its product range and cloud kitchen presence nationally.

The Mumbai-based company was earlier called Faasos Food Services. It is in the process of closing its latest round of equity financing estimated at $35 million. The company’s existing backer, marquee venture firm Sequoia Capital, is likely to put $10-15 million in this round.

Apart from Sequoia Capital, Lightbox, an early backer, has also participated in this round. The early investors of Faasos are also likely to either completely or partially exit in an ongoing secondary transaction. 

The round will value the company at $200-220 million. If successful, this new round could close by December 2018 or January 2019. 

Faasos is operating around 1,100 internet restaurants. The net revenue of Rs 147 crore was earned by the company in the financial year 2017-18. It has projected net revenue of Rs 300-350 crore for fiscal 2019. 

Swiggy, an online food delivery startup, is close to signing a term sheet to raise up to $900 million from a group of investors led by Naspers, a South African technology conglomerate.

Apart from Naspers, Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings may also participate in the round.

Out of the $900 million being raised, about $600 million would be invested as primary capital into Swiggy. The remaining $300 million will be used to buy shares from some of the existing investors of the company.

A person close to the deal said, "RB Investments and Bessemer Venture Partners are selling their entire stakes. Accel Partners and a couple of others are expected to sell some part of their stakes."

Swiggy is run by Bundl Technologies Pvt Ltd, a Bengaluru-based firm. It is the market leader in food delivery in India. Earlier, the company raised $210 million in a Series G round from new and existing investors led by Naspers and DST Global at a valuation of $1.3 billion.

Burger Singh is looking to raise around Rs 50 crore in Series B round of funding by 2019. The homegrown quick-service restaurant chain will raise the funds to expand its outlet network from the existing 25 to 100 by 2020 end.

The company's current investors along with new investors may participate in this round.

Kabir Jeet Singh, Founder and CEO, Burger Singh, said, "We will start looking out for Series B round of funding in a tune of Rs 50 crore before the end of this financial year. Once we start the talks, it may take us up to six months to close the round. The move will help us to become a national player."

The first outlet of Burger Singh was opened in November 2014. The firm has raised more than $1 million in pre-series A funding from both strategic and angel investors such as Ashvin Chadda, Rahul Singh, Dheeraj Jain, Ranvijay Singh, and Avtar Moga.

"I am very happy with my current investor set. But I would like to get a little diversity in the group. Somebody who brings in something more than just money would be ideal," Singh further said.

Recently, the QSR chain has launched its two restaurants in Central London. It aims to reach 40 outlets by the end of this year and 100 outlets by 2020.

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.

Gurugram-headquartered cloud kitchen startup InnerChef has raised around Rs 13 crore ($1.76 million) in a fresh funding round led by existing investor, Japanese venture capital firm-cum-accelerator Mistletoe.

Mistletoe is owned and funded by serial entrepreneur Taizo Son, the brother of Masayoshi Son, Founder and CEO of Japanese investment giant SoftBank.

Other investors that participated in the funding round include Singapore-based VC firm M&S Partners, along with a new Japanese investor Das Capital. While the other investors remain undisclosed.

In December 2017, Inner Chef had raised $610,000 from Ukraine-based investment firm Chernovetskyi Group and early-stage venture fund 500 Startups.

InnerChef was started by Rajesh Sawhney, Bal DiGhent and Sanjeev Singhal in 2015. It provides do-it-yourself food kits, ready-to-eat meals, and ready-to-cook meals and desserts.

Presently, the food-tech startup is operational in Delhi-NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai. It ships more than 100,000 meals per month.

Health food brand Snackible has raised an undisclosed amount of funds from Mumbai Angels Network and 1Crowd. The funds have been raised by LightSaber Food Ventures Pvt. Ltd., selling healthful food under the Snackible brand.

Some of the investors, amongst 21 Mumbai Angels Network investors, that participated in the round include Kishore Ganji, Akshay Chudasama, Hemant Sood and Pradyumna Dalmia.

Founded in 2015 by Aditya Sanghavi, Mumbai-based LightSaber sells sweet, savoury, low-calories, high-fibre, high-protein, gluten-free and lactose-free snacks. These snacks include cream and onion whole-wheat thins, makhanas (roasted fox nuts), dark chocolate ragi cookies, ready-to-eat whole-wheat waffles and baked bhakarwadi.

The products of the firm are sold offline through retail stores in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru, including Godrej Nature's Basket, Foodhall and Le marche. Snackible also sells its products through online channels.

Earlier, LightSaber Food Ventures had raised $175,000 in an angel funding round.

India's second-largest wine producer Grover Zampa Vineyards Ltd has raised Rs 60 crore in fresh funding led by Singapore-based wine investor Ravi Viswanathan.

This funding is part of a total commitment of Rs 130 crore from Viswanathan, Quintela and the AVT Group.

The funds raised will be used to redesign its wine tourism properties in Bengaluru and Nashik and launch new wines. The firm is further planning to partner with other wineries to strengthen its portfolio.

Founded by Kanwal Grover in 1988, the firm was known as Grover Vineyards before merging with Vallée de Vin in 2012 to form Grover Zampa. Currently, the winemaker has a vineyard each in Nandi Hills, Karnataka, and Nashik, Maharashtra. It claims to be selling more than 2 lakh cases a year.

Vivek Chandramohan, CEO of Grover Zampa, said, "We plan to reach half a million cases in the next five years by reinforcing experiential marketing, increasing exports, and ensuring deeper penetration in existing markets. The company will also become more marketing-driven instead of sales-driven to connect with existing consumers as well as target millennials."

Viswanathan's Visvires Capital and Anil Ambani's Reliance Capital together hold around 32% stake in Grover Zampa, while the Grover family owns 24% stake.

Fresh meat and seafood brand Licious has raised $25 million in its series C funding round. The round was led by Bertelsmann India Investments, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India along with UCLA.

The funding round was also led by the existing investors including Mayfield India, 3one4 Capital, Sistema Asia Fund and InnoVen Capital.

Licious will use the newly raised funds to expand to new cities, fostering the value-added product category. The funds will also strengthen the supply chain of the company.

Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, Co-founders of Licious, said, "We are extremely bullish about our plans going ahead. These funds will greatly aid us in deepening and widening our market presence and enable us to offer new products and services to our customers." 

The funding announcement follows the company's plans to enter the Mumbai and Pune markets by the end of 2018.

Founded in 2015, Licious had raised $10 million in Series B funding round in March 2017. Before that, the company had also raised seed funding, followed by Series A funding of more than $3 million.

Hard liquor company Boutique Spirit Brands (BSB) which sells rum and brandy under the brand names of Gladius and Zeus respectively in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh has raised about Rs 6.8 crore ($1 million) from from institutional investors like Kae Capital.

BSB closed FY18 with over Rs 18 crore in revenues selling just across two markets and is targetting gross revenues of about Rs 80 crore by FY19 as it also looks to widen its playground and portfolio.

“We are now looking to launch a whiskey brand as also expand the sale of rum and brandy to eight and four states respectively. We want to have presence across all categories and hence will look at launching a vodka brand in the long term as well,” said Rahul Gagerna, Founder of BSB, formerly the head of marketing at distilleries firm Radico Khaitan.

The company sold 50,000 cases across rum and brandy in FY18 and is looking to sell over 2 lakh cases by FY19.

“Given that liquor is a matter of state jurisdictions and the operational complexity in business, we wanted to back a team that has navigated this in the past. The cofounding team has several decades of liquor experience coupled with strong traction of brands such as Gladius and Zeus made a compelling case for us to invest,” said Navin Honagudi, Managing Director at Kae Capital.

BSB is also planning to add multiple investors for Rs 14 crore in debt finance to establish a considerable retail presence across the hotel and restaurant segment for brand recognition.

Coolberg Beverages Pvt. Ltd, the Mumbai based non-alcoholic beer maker has raised an undisclosed seed amount from venture capital firm India Quotient and Indian Angel Network’s (IAN’s) maiden fund.

According to the company, the raised funds will be channelized to expand business.

Mumbai-based Coolberg seeks to tap into the “sizeable” portion of the Indian population that does not consume alcohol, the statement said.

The company’s beer products come in flavours such as mint, strawberry, cranberry and peach, according to its website catering to the people across more than 75 cities 18 Indian states.

Pankaj Aswani and Yashika Keswani had founded the startup in 2016. Aswani worked with private sector lender Citibank and Keswani was a communications expert at advertising agency MTLB, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

“Non-alcoholic beer is relatively a white space in the beverage segment in India,” said Madhukar Sinha, founding partner at India Quotient.

“While going to pubs and cafes for drinks is a fast-catching trend for Indian millennials, the choice of beverage, especially for people who do not want alcohol, is very limited,” added Sinha. “Coolberg has an opportunity to establish itself as the first-choice beverage for all such non-alcoholic visitors to pubs and cafés,” Sinha said.

Rise in health concerns among consumers and increase in adoption of a healthy lifestyle have also led to growth in demand for non-alcoholic beer, said Anirudh Agarwal, an entrepreneur member of IAN.

Bengaluru-based personalisation technology firm, Dishq which is aimed to serve the food and beverage industry, has secured $400,000 (Rs 2.7 crore) pre-seed fund from from Techstars’ food and agriculture technology accelerator Farm to Fork and Arts Alliance.

The Syndicate Fund and angel investor Sven Hensen, founder and managing partner of business analytics firm mayato. Existing investors Zeroth, a startup accelerator, and Artesian Venture Partners also participated in this funding round.

According to the company the raised amount will be used to expand its engineering team and to accelerate its sales and marketing activities.

The artificial intelligence startup takes food science and machine learning into help to predict people’s tastes. Dishq claims to have developed what it calls a ‘food brain’ that can predict both an individual’s food preferences as well as broader industry trends.

The startup was launched in December 2015 by Kishan Vasani (chief executive) and Sai Sreenivas Kodur (technology head), who both previously worked at online food ordering ventures Just Eat and Zomato, respectively.

The tech service provider is currently powering more than 30 million recommendations each month. It claims to have its users across six markets for its first product, a business-to-business (B2B) personalisation engine.

“Our technology essentially brings greater alignment between producers and consumers, and we’re truly honoured and excited to have the backing of such fantastic investors for our vision,” Vasani said.

Alchemy Capital, an investment fund co-founded by Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, has bought about 3.5 per cent stake in restaurant chain Barbeque-Nation Hospitality for Rs 90 crore. The fund acquired the stake as part of a pre-initial public offering deal, valuing the company, promoted by Sayaji Hotels, at around Rs 2,300-2,400 crore, said investment bankers.

The Bengaluru-headquartered Barbeque-Nation, which pioneered ‘over the table barbeque’ concept in Indian restaurants, filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) for its maiden IPO in August 2017. The IPO is estimated to raise over Rs 700 crore, according to merchant banking sources. As per the DRHP, the issue comprises a fresh issue of shares of Rs 200 crore and an offer for sale of up to 61,79,000 equity shares from certain selling shareholders.

In 2013, Ajay Relan-founded CX Partners invested close to Rs 110 crore, followed by an additional investment of Rs 103 Crore in 2015.

According to Technopak, the chain Casual Dining Restaurant (CDR) segment is one of the fastest growing segments in the Indian restaurant industry and is projected to grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of approximately 21 per cent from Fiscal 2017 to Fiscal 2022.

According to its DRHP filed in August 2017, Barbeque-Nation had 81 restaurants in India as on June 30, 2017. The public offer will result in around 30per cent stake dilution on a postoffer basis, said another person familiar with the development. According to the company’s DRHP, the company trebled its revenue from Rs 184 crore to Rs 503 crore during the fiscal 2013 to 2017.

In what furthers the wave of consumer brands increasingly finding favour with India's venture capital ecosystem, Kishlay Foods which manufactures snacks, chips and biscuits has raised $15 million (Rs 100 crore) in its latest round of funding. The investment round was led by growth equity investment firm Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and D.K. Surana, promoter of Intensive Softshare Services (Intensive).

The investment which also features a prominent secondary share sale component, will be used to primarily buyout the existing business partners, as also to expand distribution in North and East India markets, launch additional product lines, and enhance the management team.

“Kishlay foods is well positioned to penetrate deeper in its home markets and expand further in new geographies and products. Kishlay is excited to partner with NVP and Intensive and will benefit greatly from the support of external investors as it looks ahead on to its next phase of growth,” said Sandeep Bajaj, CEO of Kishlay Foods.

Founded in 2003, the Guwahati based firm is a significant regional player focused on the snacks market and currently has a dominant presence in North East India selling products under the brand names of “Non-Stop”, “Kishlay” and “Mamooz”. The product basket comprises extruded snacks, potato chips, biscuits and cookies.

The financing is expected to fuel growth towards establishing a stronger brand platform and capturing an increased share of the organized snack market in India. Mumbai based Intensive is also the sole syndicator and advisor to the deal.

“As part of Norwest’s investment focus on food tech, packaged food and food services, we have been tracking Kishlay Foods for a long time, and have been extremely impressed with the quality of the team, the company’s rapid growth and strategic execution,” said Sumer Juneja, Director at NVP India. “The large organized snacks market in India is estimated to be $8 billion and is growing at 20% CAGR. With its unique products and growing distribution network, Kishlay is well positioned to capture this opportunity,” Juneja added.

Delhi-based startup Original Ice Creams today said it has raised Rs 3 crore in equity funding from Maverick group for a 30 per cent stake in the company.

"Three of our outlets are already operational and we were able to achieve break even in the first month itself. We have planned to open 30 more outlets in the NCR region by 2019-20," Original Ice creams founder Vinay Gaur said.

He added that the company will use the finance for expanding retail distribution into other cities of northern India, including Lucknow, Jaipur and Chandigarh.

Nanotech startup Log 9 raises Rs 3 cr

Bengaluru based nanotechnology startup Log 9 Materials today said it has raised around Rs 3 crore from Metaform Ventures and others.

The pre series - A funding also saw participation from Hemant Luthra (Chairman, Mahindra CIE), GEMS and other angel investors, the company said in a statement.

Log 9 will be using the latest funds to strengthen its commercial operations and patented product portfolio, as well as boosting R&D activities extensively, it added.

Data science expert Nuria Oliver joins Comviva Board .

Mobility solutions provider Comviva today said data science expert Nuria Oliver has joined its advisory board.

Oliver is director of research in data science at Vodafone, chief data scientist at Data-Pop Alliance and chief scientific advisor for the Vodafone Institute, Comviva said in a statement.

"She will work with the Comviva leadership team, providing strategic recommendations on the company's existing portfolio and new initiatives. She will also provide her expertise on strategic alliances and investments," it added.

Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd (PCHFL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the diversified Piramal Enterprises Ltd, said on Monday that it has invested Rs 650 crore ($94 million) in hotels owned by Gurugram-based hospitality firm SAMHI Group.

PCHFL said in a statement that the structured debt funding will help SAMHI Group with its growth plans and refinance existing lenders across three assets – The Courtyard and Fairfield by Marriott in Bengaluru, Sheraton in Hyderabad and Hyatt Regency in Pune.

The company said that all loans are against operational assets.

The deal marks PCHFL’s third investment in the hospitality sector over the past six months.

Before this, PCHFL had invested Rs 600 crore in the Gurugram-based Vatika Group (Westin Gurgaon and the Westin Sohna) and Rs 600 crore in Advantage Raheja Group (JW Marriott, Bengaluru and the Crowne Plaza, Pune).

PCHFL has also sealed five other transactions worth Rs 450 crore against five hotel assets which are operated by top-tier brands like Taj, Hyatt, Radisson, etc. across regions like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Shimla and Goa.

Of this, the firm will provide Rs 100 crore as last-mile funding towards the completion of the first Taj Luxury Resort in Himachal Pradesh coming up in Theog, near Shimla.

“We believe that this is an opportune time to target the hospitality sector with ‘intelligent’ capital,” said PCHFL managing director Khushru Jijina.

“The industry is firmly on a path of growth, ably supported by both domestic and foreign tourism, has higher disposable income and is witnessing a general change in spending habits of target customers,” Jijina added.

The company has deployed Rs 2,000 crore towards the hospitality sector as it scales its offerings within this vertical to reach a target book size of Rs 10,000 crore in the next three years.

“We continue to see accretive acquisition opportunities in hotel sector and we are perhaps best positioned to take advantage of these,” said Ashish Jakhanwala, founder and chief executive officer, SAMHI Group.

SAMHI was founded by Jakhanwala and Manav Thadani in 2011. In 2016, US-headquartered investment firm Goldman Sachs had invested Rs 441 crore ($66 million at the time) in the PE-controlled hospitality firm for a minority stake.

Equity International, GTI Capital Group and International Finance Corporation had also invested in SAMHI Group.

Unibev is looking to raise Rs 100 crore to fund an expansion drive planned by the premium alcohol startup, founded by former United Spirits managing director Vijay Rekhi in collaboration with bulk alcohol producer Globus Spirits.

“The fundraising will be completed before March 2019 to help us spread to the top 17 markets in the country and enable us garner around a tenth of India’s premium alcohol market, which is currently growing at 9% a year,” Rekhi told ET.

He said the company has launched the Governor’s Reserve whisky using 12-year-old scotch, Oakton Barrel Aged whisky with 18-year-old scotch and a brandy brand, L’Affaire, using three-year-old grape spirit in the southern states.

Unibev’s offerings compete with the premium brands of French giant Pernod Ricard and British company Diageo, which now controls United Spirits.

“In a price-sensitive market, our premium brands are priced very competitively to deliver to consumer aspiration for scotch like smooth and premium blends,” said Rekhi, adding that this was part of a strategy to disrupt India’s premium alcohol market.

The firm is now eyeing to sell 100,000 cases in the first year that could fetch it a 5-7% market share in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Puducherry where it currently sells products. While the semi-premium and premium whisky segments were growing at 7% and 9% a year, respectively, in India, the premium brandy market is growing at 15%.

Rekhi said Unibev’s partner Globus Spirits owns the largest grain-based distillery in India that offered a distinct advantage for the startup’s premium portfolio.

The company is looking at launching whiskies of higher vintage shortly, he said.

Viewing that the Indian market had not seen any innovation in brandy flavours for more than three decades, Rekhi said Unibev’s L’Affaire was a runaway success in the pilot market of Puducherry. “Here again, we plan to launch brandies with higher vintages, shortly,” he said.

Rekhi said Unibev would ramp up its portfolio also with premium differentiated rum, vodka, beer and imported brands. “This is the beginning of a long drawn out disruption by Unibev in all flavours and profitable price points in the Indian beverage alcohol market,” he said.

Micro-hospitality startup SaffronStays has about $2 million from consumer-centric venture capital firm Sixth Sense Ventures. The pre-series A investment marks the first institutional round into the firm and will help SaffronStays expand the number of holiday properties under its platform.

Founded in 2015 by Devendra and Tejas Parulekar, SaffronStays curates and manages hospitality operations, reservations, branding and marketing for private vacation homes owned by high networth individuals. The firm currently operates 45 homes across six states in India and claims to host over 1,500 guests every month.

“We are excited to have Sixth Sense Ventures as our partners in our entrepreneurial journey. We hope to use this money to expand our footprint, work on innovative business models, strengthen our operations and improve our technology backbone,” said Devendra Parulekar, Founder of SaffronStays. As part of this investment, Nikhil Vora, Founder & CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures will join the board of SaffronStays.

Hospitality being a high margin sector, SaffronStays claims to be cash flow positive at a unit level even as it clocks about Rs 5 crore in annual revenues.

“The Indian travel market is massive and yet underserved. We believe that SaffronStays is very well equipped to capture this market with its exclusivity and well-curated offerings and parallely create an opportunity for homeowners to monetize their most valuable and expensive asset,” said Vora on the investment.

Currently operational around Mumbai, Pune, Goa and a few locations around Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, the firm is looking to scale to about 125 properties by the end of 2018 even as it looks to scale to over 1,000 homes over the next 5 years.

Noida-based student housing startup Placio has raised $50,000 in seed funding for its new venture in subscription-based food delivery system.

The company acquired a subscription-based food startup Paco Meals. With this move, it will help Paco Meals with the technology.

The takeover of Paco Meal provides Placio with an edge of talented culinary professionals,  and state-of-the-art facilities to develop menus that meet a multitude of tastes and deliver food beyond expectations.

“Placio intends to transform student living with nutritious and tasty food. With our deep understanding of the student market, we realise that nutrition and food play an important role in transformative living and learning experience. This is part of our vision for making students feels safe, involved and inspired. The good news is that Placio now extends this outlook to even students living in non-Placio properties. Taking over Paco Meals will now make us realize our dreams -- by an unrestricted provision of meals to all students in other student housing also," said Rohit Pateria and Ankush Arora, co-founders of Placio.

Paco Meals focuses on ‘3As appearance, aroma and appetite’ targeting delicious, innovative, sustainable, healthy food options. The company ensures the menu will not be repeated at least for 3 months and also brings the ‘taste of home’ to meals as students are invited to bring their favourite recipes from home, especially those for vegetarian and ethnic dishes.

“We understand the needs of bachelors and students as we have experienced the unappetising meals’ during our stay in college hostels. This unpleasant experience led to my startup in 2016 to provide wholesome and nutritious meals at subsidized prices for bachelors and students who were on a lean budget. Placio today has given me an opportunity to provide the residents and students with hygienic and nutritious meals filled with variety and flavour at all Placio’s housing in Delhi, Greater Noida, Noida Laxmi Nagar, Indore, and Lucknow," said Nitin Joshi and Parul Tusele, co-owners of Paco Meals.

Dibz, an online food delivery startup which also serves as an online-to-offline (O2O) platform for discovering restaurant deals, has raised an undisclosed amount in a bridge round of funding from Stellaris Venture Partners and existing investor Benori Ventures, a top company executive told VCCircle.

Vikas Bagaria, founder of toilet hygiene brand PeeSafe, and Rahul Maroli, vice-president and business head at ride-hailing unicorn Ola, also participated in this round. Both individuals had invested in Dibz in the past.

Apart from Stellaris, the other new investors in this round included Ritu Mehrotra, country manager at Booking.com, and Abhivyakti Gulati, founder of handicrafts & household items platform Aakarsshan.

Dibz, operated by Gurugram-based Xpericon Online Solutions Pvt. Ltd, will primarily use the fresh capital to expand to more cities besides consolidating operations in areas where it already has a presence, said co-founder Sonal Pande.

“Though we have a presence in Gurugram and have plans to expand into Delhi and Noida as well, tier-2 and 3 markets are our main focus,” said Pande. “We are already present in Varanasi, Allahabad, Lucknow. We will soon launch our services in Dehradun and Kanpur.”

Dibz hopes to be present in 10 cities by the end of October. Apart from expanding to a few more cities in Uttar Pradesh, venturing into another state is also on its to-do list.

The company had previously raised two rounds of funding – one each in 2016 and 2017 – from Benori Ventures, Bagaria and Maroli besides Amit Parsuramka, president-funds at Lodha Ventures and Partha Sarathi Guha Patra, founder of Asadel Tech.

Founded in November 2015, Dibz had a soft launch in April 2016 in Gurugram before moving into tier-2 markets in the region. Late last year, Pande’s husband Rishabh Kaila came on board as a co-founder .

Dibz’s other founding members include Udit Verma, who looks after verticals that include marketing, operations, customer acquisition and retention. Raunak Pandey handles business development.

The venture started off as a mobile app that enables users to discover curated offers and deals from more than 150 restaurants, hotels and pubs.

Using proprietary algorithms and a predictive analytics platform, Dibz helps its merchants decide on appropriate deals.

However, Dibz has gradually moved away from deal discovery as its primary business and is currently focussing on food delivery. The venture also has plans to develop in-house logistics capabilities.

Dibz claims to have more than 70,000 customers using its platform and has plans to increase this number to about 5 lakh by end of this year as it expands to new markets.

“The idea is to eventually become a unified platform for food. Be it restaurant deals & discounts, table bookings or home deliveries, we want to be the go-to platform for anything to do with food,” she added.

Premium Biryani chain ‘Biryani by Kilo’ (BBK) has raised about $1 million in its Pre-series A round of funding from a clutch of investors led by Ajay Relan, Founder Chairman at CX Partners and Vinay Mittal from HT Media Strategy.

Currently headquartered in New Delhi, the company is looking to use the capital to scale operations and stores across India.

Founded in 2015 by food veterans Kaushik Roy and Vishal Jindal, BBK was launched with an intent to preserve the Khansama style of cooking wherein the biryani is freshly cooked with rich ingredients, unlike other brands where the food is cooked in bulk and repackaged & sold.

“We aim to make Biryani By Kilo a renowned name in the food service and delivery category from India. With the help of the distinguished team of investors, we will expand both our geographic presence as well as the product range and open outlets in multiple Indian cities,” said Kaushik Roy, Founder & CEO - Biryani By Kilo.

BBK currently has a total of 11 outlets in India across Delhi-NCR and Mumbai. The restaurant chain is looking to expand its footprint in the domestic market by opening over 20 stores in metros by March 2019.

BBK claims to grow at an annual rate of about 70%, currently clocking an annual revenue run rate of about Rs 24 crore. With this fund raise, BBK is aiming to scale its annual revenue run rate to over Rs 40 crore by FY19 end.

Wholesome Habits Pvt. Ltd, which sells healthy snack bars under the brand name Eat Anytime, has raised $500,000 (Rs 3.43 crore) in seed funding from early-stage investment firm Sprout Venture Partners and a few high-net-worth individuals.

“The funding would be primarily used for marketing, branding, increasing the distribution network and launching new products in the healthy snacks category,” said Rishit Sanghvi, founder of Wholesome Habits.

“Eat Anytime has seen ‘good traction’ with its health bars and has lined up ‘innovative products’ for the future. This is one of the fastest growing categories in the organised snacking market,” Sahil Gupta, partner at Sprout Venture, said.

Incorporated in 2016, the Mumbai-based company was founded by Sanghvi and Rohit Garodia. It houses a team of food technologists, chefs and dieticians for product curation. Its products include sweet and savoury snack bars in various flavours.

It has the presence in more than 500 stores in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. It also sells through online marketplaces, its own website and various institutional channels.

The company plans to launch its products in other cities such as Delhi and Ahmedabad in near future.

Day-to-day grocery delivery startup Milkbasket has raised $7 million in a Series A funding led by Kalaari Capital with participation from its existing investors, BeeNext, a Japanese fund, Unilever Ventures and Blume Ventures.

Commenting on the investment, Vani Kola, MD, Kalaari Capital said, "Strong founding team, focus towards data-based decision making, operational rigour, and incessant focus on customer delight, backed by a large market opportunity in the grocery space culminated into us leading a $7M Series A round into Milkbasket."

Founder and CEO Anant Goel added that the company is going to use the funds for further innovations in supply chain efficiencies and last mile logistics, hiring additional talent and expand into additional territories.

Teruhide Sato, founder of BeeNext, said, "Our investment in Milkbasket provides us with meaningful participation in one of the fastest growing e-grocery markets globally."

In previous raises, the company had raised $3 million in a pre-series A funding from Unilever ventures and others in January 2018.

The country’s leading FMCG firm, Dabur India has planned to infuse Rs 250-300 crore in capacity expansion this fiscal year along with the acquisitions plans in the domestic market, senior officials said.

"We are going in for brownfield expansion to increase capacity this year. We will have approximately Rs 250-300 crore capex (capital expenditure) for the current year going forward in FY19," Dabur India chief financial officer Lalit Malik said at an investor concall following announcement of the company's March-quarter results recently.

The company has just done a couple of acquisitions in South Africa, and is looking at doing something "substantial" in India going forward, the company's chief executive officer, Sunil Duggal, explained to analysts.

"...we are still looking at some targets but nothing is really coming out of it. Our intent in terms of M&A remains completely intact. We still have over Rs 2,000 crore of cash in the pocket and it will be built up during this year as well. So I think we do have the ability and the resources to do acquisitions even of a large size," he said.

The FMCG major had last month acquired two South Africa-based firms D&A Cosmetics Proprietary and Atlanta Body & Health Products Proprietary through its subsidiary.

Dabur had also announced last year that it will acquire the two personal care products companies for a total cash consideration of 50 million rands (about Rs 25 crore).

Duggal also informed that the company is focusing on international business, as it offers higher margins.

He said, "We would not expand in the domestic business, expansion will come from international, so the blended margins may look better," adding the company should be able to protect domestic margins, but he does not see any great possibility of increasing the same.

Dabur India reported a 19.04 per cent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 397.18 crore in the March quarter, against Rs 333.65 crore in the same year-ago period.

Total income grew 6.38 per cent to Rs 2,106.15 crore, compared with Rs 1,979.72 crore.

In a bid to expand global market footprints, Organic cold-pressed juice and beverage maker Raw Pressery has confirmed to have secured an existing capital of Rs 65 crore (about $10 million) from Sequoia Capital, Saama Capital, and DSG Consumer Partners.

The four-year-old beverage maker is also in talks with family offices and institutional investors to raise an additional $5 million as part of this funding round, which is likely to close in the next 1-2 months.

With this, the total capital raised by the firm stands at about Rs 152 crore, not counting the $5 million (Rs 34 crore) that it is yet to finalise.

Raw Pressery had last raised $6 million from the three existing investors in October 2017.

Founded in 2013, the Mumbai-based consumer startup is looking to use the capital to expand its international footprint to Southeast Asia as also strengthen its distribution and supply chain as it looks to scale new offerings.

“We are looking to start a pilot of our operations in Southeast Asia starting with Singapore and then Kuala Lumpur. We will go live in these markets next year,” CEO Anuj Rakyan said. RAW Pressery is also in the process of setting up a production plant in West Asia to expand its recently launched operations in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai.

The firm has also been receiving investor interest from global strategic players and family offices and is likely to close a larger round of investment by FY19-end.

Raw Pressery claims to have grown 120% in FY18 and is looking to grow revenues by about 112% in FY19. The ‘clean-label beverage’ brand is also looking to expand its retail touch points in India to 6,000 by FY19 end from the current 2,000 that it is available in.

The firm, which is also looking to introduce alkaline water later this year, is targeting a turnover of Rs 100 crore over the next two years, aiming to grow over 6 times since FY17.

Juices and smoothies, which form about 90% of the revenues, is the core business for RAW Pressery, which has introduced newer categories including nut milk and soups.

For FY19, expanding the distribution reach for its non-dairy product line including almond milk as also its probiotic range under dairy will be the key growth focus for RAW Pressery as it looks to scale these new categories internationally.

“We have built a lot of defensive moats including our sourcing back-end, own supply chain, intellectual property (IP) and branding. That has helped us scale significantly and meet about 96% of our revenue projection for FY18,” said Rakyan.

RAW Pressery clocked Rs 15.1 crore in operational revenues for FY17 reflecting a strong growth of about 140% from Rs 6.3 crore in FY16, according to financial documents filed with the registrar of companies.

The Mumbai-based Quick service restaurant chain, Charcoal Eats has bagged Rs 5 crore ($742,000) from a clutch of angel investors in its pre-Series A round of funding, a company statement said.

The QSR chain will increase its footprint across new geographies as well as consolidate its presence in existing markets by using generated funding. A part of the money will also be used towards brand building activities, the statement added.

The participating investors in this round include Rajesh Ramanathan, head of global growth at Mondelez; Sanjay Bhandarkar, senior advisor at Rothschild India; Amit Gupta, partner at New Quest Capital Partners; and Vishesh Shrivastav, director at Temasek, among others.

“The new investment reiterates our commitment towards building a sustainable and scalable Indian QSR offering consistent quality across the country,” said Anurag Mehrotra, chief executive of Charcoal Eats.

Prior to this round, the firm, which is run by CharcoalEats Foodtech Pvt Ltd, raised Rs 7 crore from several angel investors.

Mehrotra along with three others Krishnakant Thakur, Gautam Singh and Mohammed Bhol launched the firm in September 2015.

Charcoal Eats claims to be offering all-day food options during snack and meal times at various price points. Customers can dine-in, take-away or order for delivery, as per their convenience. The offerings include a wide array of biryanis, rolls, puff pizzas, beverages, and desserts.

The firm currently operates 22 outlets across six cities Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Delhi-NCR, and Nashik. It aims to set up more than 60 similar units across 10 cities by the end of this year.

Charcoal Eats is also available on all leading food platforms such as Zomato, Swiggy, Foodpanda, Dine Out, etc. Corporate executives will soon be able to pay for their Charcoal Eats orders with their Sodexo and Ticket Restaurant cards.

After the primary investment of Rs 100 crores by Samena Capital in Series B round, Bloom Hotels (“Bloom”) is swiftly moving ahead with its expansion plans. The investment values Bloom at 330 crores and will help roll out the company’s innovative affordable brands to all Indian cities. With this investment, Samena Capital has taken a 35% stake in Bloom Hotels.

After pioneering its unique hotel concepts across key India markets like Bengaluru, New Delhi, Gurgaon, and Goa, Bloom has recently picked up the pace of expansion in pursuit of its aim to set up 100 hotels across South Asia. The expansion coincides with India becoming the world’s third-largest airline market. Demand growth is also being driven by the emerging middle-income group and growing discretionary consumption.

“We are delighted to partner with Bloom, a truly differentiated company that can bring transformational change to the industry. Bloom has proven its unique business model by achieving operational profitability across its current portfolio in a very short period of time.” Said Mr. Shirish Saraf, Founder, and Vice-Chairman of Samena Capital while commenting on the investment.

“We are proud to have Samena on board as we grow the Bloom brand across South Asia in quick time. We look forward to benefiting from the Samena team’s proven track record in working with consumer-facing companies at the high growth stage,” COO of Bloom, Sanjeev Sethi said.

As part of the pan India rollout, in February this year, Bloom Hotels opened two properties in Calangute, Goa. This included the official launch of the newly minted BloomSuites brand at a 140-room hotel. The company has also lined up hotel launches in 20 other locations across the country, from Hyderabad to Kochi to Mumbai.

In latest funding round led by private equity firm Paragon Partners, organised tea firm Chai Point has raised $20 million. The firms existing investors including Eight Roads (Fidelity’s India PE arm), Saama Capital and DSG Consumer partners also participated in the series C round.

Paragon Partners recently raised $120 mn for its first fund and is led by Siddharth Parekh, son of veteran banker Deepak Parekh. As part of this round, Siddharth Parekh will join Chai Point's board.

DCS Advisory India (earlier Signal Hill Capital) had been the advisor of the company for this fundraise.

A large part of the capital raised will be towards enhancing the brand's multi-market go-to-market and grow significantly from its current sales of 3,00,000 cups per day.

"A substantial portion of our investment proceeds will go towards deepening our sales, marketing, and service operations for our automated hot beverage dispensing business - boxC.in - which is the next growth driver for the business. High-quality tea and coffee is fundamental to our growth and we are going to expand and refine our underlying sourcing program – “Garden to Glass”," said Amuleek Singh Bijral, CEO and Co-founder of Chai Point in a statement.

boxC.in is the company's fresh-milk based dispenser platform with over 2000 such units having been deployed in India.

Further, Chai Point is also set to enhance its food menu and widen its offering as it looks to take on competitors such as Chaayos in the multi-channel tea market that is pegged at over Rs 1.5 lakh crore in India.

"We are bullish on the consumption story in India and are excited to partner with Chai Point. This investment is in line with our overarching investment theme of partnering high-caliber entrepreneurs with compelling business models," said Siddharth Parekh, Co-founder at Paragon Partners.

The 8-year-old company is targeting a 5x growth over the next 3 years as it looks to double down on offline expansion significantly setting sights on its 100th store by May 2018.

Sleepy Owl Coffee Pvt. Ltd, which sells cold brew coffee under the Sleepy Owl brand has received Rs 3.5 crore (around $540,000) Funding from Early-stage investment firm DSG Consumer Partners.

In a statement, Delhi-based Sleepy Owl said it plans to use the seed funding to expand its product portfolio and grow its footprint across the country with its main in Delhi-NCR.

Sleepy Owl co-founder Ajai Thandi said the fresh infusion would help the firm streamline operations. He said the main focus for the year ahead would be to increase Sleepy Owl’s existing customer base of 15,000 by increasing stock keeping units (SKUs), boosting retail presence and marketing.

Thandi, Ashwajeet Singh, and Arman Sood had set up Sleepy Owl in June 2016. The company, which was incorporated last year, sells coffee through its ready-to-drink offerings as well as powder packets.

Cold brew coffee involves steeping coffee beans in cold water for nearly a day, with no use of external heat.

Deepak Shahdadpuri, managing director at DSG Consumer Partners, said the segment is increasingly becoming popular around the world.

Trilegal acted as legal advisor to DSG Consumer Partners on the Sleepy Owl deal.

Popular restaurant chain like Punjab Grill, Baker Street and Street Foods, which is run by Lite Bite Foods, is considering to raise funds through an initial public offer (IPO).

The company runs close to 140 restaurant outlets through its portfolio of over a dozen brands and is promoted by Dabur's Vice Chairman Amit Burman and Rohit Aggarwal.”

"We are toying with the idea ..maybe next year we will be big enough to think of an IPO. We have met different bankers about how we should go ahead. We would rather go in for IPO than private equity. We are having discussions but nothing is decided yet. Maybe next year," said Lite Bite Foods Chairman Amit Burman.

"As of now, it is all internal accruals from promoter funds," he added.

Lite Bite Foods has also bagged master concession right for the development of eateries in 5-tier 2-tier airports in India.

The company plans to open close to 60 new outlets in India in the next financial year, mostly in these new airports, through a portfolio of its owned and franchised brands.

At present, the company opens outlets from the portfolio of 12 owned brands and 7 managed brands such as KFC, Burger King, Subway and Pizza Hut at airports.

"Travel by Indians is going up and we want to look at airport travel retail as a separate business vertical. We have had experience of running eateries at airports. We have bagged master concession for Indore, Ahmedabad, Coonoor, Calicut, and Bhubaneshwar airports. We are also looking at expanding the existing presence at the Jammu and Pune Airports,” he said.

At present, the company operates 58 outlets at airports in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune, Jammu, and Goa.

Burman said the company also plans to bid for a concession at airports outside India such as Thailand, Singapore, and Dubai, whenever an opportunity comes.

The company is also looking at expanding its business of institutional catering. It at present operates 21 outlets for running this business. It serves 10 institutional clients.

The 2014 established food-tech startup SmartQ has raised $1 million from a group of Dubai-based investors. The round also saw participation from existing investor YourNest.

The company offers digital cafeteria solutions to eliminate queues, minimise wait time and offer a better experience. The platform includes mobile application, automated billing kiosks, centralised billing system, NFC (near field communication) prepaid cards, POS software etc. The company clocks over 1 lakh transactions everyday and has been growing 50% month-on-month. It counts companies like Shell and Epsilon amongst its clients.

Krishna Wage,Founder and CEO, SmartQ, said, “The funding has enabled us to focus on the next level of strategic growth while also scaling up on technology, talent and brand building in full swing. SmartQ intends to use the raised funds to bolster its efforts in growing business outside India.”

Anvita Varshney former MD of Lazada group, has joined the board of advisors at SmartQ, as part of the funding.

Sapphire Foods, the company that owns more than 300 outlets of Pizza Hut and KFC in South India and Sri Lanka is looking to raise $60 million or Rs 360-400 crore from private equity investors to fund its new store expansion plans.

The company, owned by a consortium of PE investors such as Samara Capital, CX Partners, Goldman Sachs and IDI Emerging Markets Fund, is being valued at around $250-300 million. 

According to sources, "The fund raise will be largely primary and the existing investors will decide on monetising part of their stake based on the incoming offers."

The company that is now EBITDA positive has seen its same store sales grow by more than 10 per cent year on year in the last three years.

The company is looking at adding 50 new stores this year and the capital raised from new investors will fund the expansion, sources revealed.

For Samara Capital that is on an exit mode for most of its investments, Sapphire could bring in some early earn out if the valuation offered by incoming investor is right.

Mumbai-based Holachef has raised $5 million (over Rs 32 crore) in its Series B round led by existing investor Kalaari Capital. SIDBI Venture Capital and India Quotient also participated, as per filings with the Registrar of Companies and documents sourced from Tofler.

The Series B round — completed in two tranches over April and October — has not been publicly disclosed by the company and values Holachef at Rs 143 crore.

Holachef said the capital would be used for team building and scaling logistic infrastructure to streamline the business.

Saurabh Saxena, CEO, said, "Focus was to get our processes to better serve the Mumbai market and create a more sustainable business model."

The company is widening its current menu range over the next two months.

Holachef clocked Rs 11.3 crore in operating revenues in FY16 but posted a loss of Rs 24.8 crore for the same period. With operating costs touching Rs 35 crore in FY16, high customer acquisition costs have been a challenge for the company - an issue that is prevalent across the food tech sector.

In a bid to soften the blow of a high customer acquisition cost, Holachef will be opening its first customer-facing offline kiosk in the city, though Saxena maintains the move is an experiment rather than a well-thought out strategy.

Saxena said, "(The offline kiosk) is actually a distribution centre but more presentable and customer-facing so people can buy directly from there as well. If this customer-facing centre is beneficial for marketing, then we may look at opening new distribution centres which are similar."

Gurgaon-based food startup Biryani By Kilo, operated by Sky Gate Hospitality Pvt Ltd., has secured angel funding from a clutch of investors, the company's founder Kaushik Roy informed.

The firm will use the fresh funds to set up new kitchens in Delhi NCR and strengthen technology processes.

Roy has also planned that a part of the funds raised will be used in hiring new talent and on building the infrastructure.

Roy has also shared his plans on coming up with three new outlets, with the help of the funds raised in the angel funding.

Biryani By Kilo already has three outlets operating in Delhi NCR.  

Odisha-based dairy startup Milk Mantra Dairy has raised about USD10 million (Rs 66.5 crore) in a fresh round of funding that has been led by State Bank of India-backed Neev Fund.

Existing backers of the seven year-old company, which include Eight Roads Ventures, the proprietary investment arm of global asset management giant Fidelity International, and impact investor Aavishkaar, have also participated in the series-D equity financing round, the proceeds of which will be used by Milk Mantra towards making acquisitions and expanding its footprint across eastern India.

Srikumar Misra, Chief Executive, Milk Mantra, said, "Our whole focus has been to establish our dominance in eastern India… We are looking at multiple acquisitions in Jharkand, Chhattisgarh and Bengal. We are also looking to set up greenfield projects."

This is the first round of funding raised by the company after it mopped up about Rs 80 crore from Eight Roads and Aavishkaar in June 2014. That transaction had a mix of primary and secondary components, which saw the exit of the firm's angel investors, with Aavishkaar also selling the stake held by its previous fund, Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital.

The amount raised by Milk Mantra is also part of a larger funding round that is expected to close over the course of the year. Misra, however, declined to provide details of the same. Post the round, Ambalika Banerjee from Neev Fund and Dhyanesh Shah from Eight Roads will join the Bhubaneshwar-headquartered company's board.

By Nusra

In the last few months, India has emerged as a home to food start-ups with investors putting in their money into the fast emerging segment which is growing at around 17 per cent annually.

Leaping Caravan, a Delhi-based online restaurant that serves Indian cuisine to corporate customers in Delhi and Gurgaon, has raised around $150,000 (about Rs 1 crore) from the group of angel investors.

“The funds will help us grow the business at a monthly rate of 50 per cent as will use the raised amount for expansion, stringent marketing, technology enhancement, manpower acquisition and up-gradation of operations of the brand,” shared Megha Tuli, Founder & CEO, Leaping Caravan.

The group is also planning to set-up another delivery centre in Delhi targeting at an increase in the number of orders it gets daily.

At present, Leaping Caravan gets around 30 orders every day and the initial round of funding might help them get nearly 100 orders on a daily basis.

“Moreover, 70 per cent of the orders come through the website as of now and 60 per cent customers are corporate players,” added Tuli who holds a B.Sc degree in International Hospitality Management from Ecole Hotelier de Lausanne (EHL) in Switzerland and has a finance and hospitality background.