Country Delight To Become Profitable In The Next 8-10 Months: Cofounder Chakradhar Gade

At a time when an increasing number of Indian startups are trying to be in the black, the cofounder of Country Delight, Chakradhar Gade, has said that the dairytech startup is also not far from reaching the profitability milestone.

“We are currently an almost $200 Mn revenue company, and the business is growing at 5-7% month-on-month. We are on the clear path to profitability in the next 8-10 months,” Gade said while speaking at the fourth edition of Inc42’s D2C summit.

Country Delight currently serves 15 cities in India. As shared by Gade, the startup makes almost 10 Mn monthly deliveries to more than 5 Lakh subscribers across the cities it operates in.

During the session, Gade talked about his fascination with the traditional Indian milkman system. The initial hypothesis of Gade and his partner, Nitin Kaushal, centred around the concept of a full-stack business model, where they aimed to own the entire supply chain, from the farm to the customer.

One of the intriguing aspects of their approach was viewing cattle as a non-depreciating asset, as they only multiply over time. This perspective meant they could potentially grow the business without external capital infusion.

According to Gade, the core mission of the startup is to provide superior quality products to customers, cultivate customer loyalty, and add value to people’s lives.

Country Delight began its journey as a bootstrapped venture and dedicated the first 5 to 6 years to laying the foundation. The cofounders focussed on critical elements such as building technology to digitally monitor quality at the source, establishing a reliable supply chain with real-time visibility, and creating a proprietary distribution network capable of scalable operations.

Founded in 2013 by Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal, Country Delight follows a subscription-based model where it sources milk from farmers and delivers it to customers. It also supplies bread, ghee, other dairy products, and fruits and vegetables.

Since its inception, the startup has raised more than $158 Mn and is currently valued at over $600 Mn. It counts Orios Venture Partners, Elevation Capital, and Temasek among its investors.

Country Delight’s net loss increased 6.5X to INR 186.4 Cr in the financial year 2021-22 (FY22) from INR 28.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year due to a sharp increase in its expenses. The Delhi NCR-based startup’s revenue from operations rose 1.6X to INR 542.6 Cr in FY22 from INR 320.7 Cr in FY21.