Iron Pillar, Joe Hirao Invest $20 Mn In Food Supply Chain Startup FreshToHome

Bengaluru-based online marketplace and supply chain startup for perishable goods FreshToHome has raised $20 Mn in Series B funding round from Iron Pillar and Joe Hirao, founder, ZIGExn, Japan.

The fresh funds will be used to expand within India and overseas, especially the UAE. The company will also use the funds to diversify their product offerings in various other fresh and chemical-free food categories, such as fruits and vegetables, cold-pressed oils, organic cow and buffalo milk, dairy products, organic staples and other healthy food products.

These products will eventually be distributed across e-commerce platforms, retail outlets and other channels across multiple geographies.

Prior to this round, the company has raised $11 Mn from investors such as CE Ventures, Das Capital, Kortschak Investments, TTCER Partners, Al-Nasser Holdings, M&S Partners, Al-Nasser Holdings & Abdul Azeez Al-Ghurair from UAE, Rajan Anandan, Mark Pincus, David Krane, among others.

FreshToHome was founded in 2015 by Shan Kadavil and Mathew Joseph. The company aims to leverage artificial intelligence and internet of things into the cold chain, food safety and sourcing processes.

FreshToHome claims to have crossed $30 Mn (INR 200 Cr) in annualised direct to consumer sales. The company also said that it has grown 30% M-o-M and has expanded to new markets in India such as Mumbai and Pune. It has also launched its operations in UAE.

The company has recently launched its outlets in Bengaluru and Chennai. It also claims to have 650K customers across nine cities in India and internationally across the UAE.

Anand Prasanna, the managing partner of Iron Pillar, said, “This is our first investment into the food-tech space and we wanted to be certain of the value offered by the brand and strong technology-enabled moats for the business. FreshToHome’s brand proposition has been to provide 100% Fresh food with 0% Chemicals, not an easy thing to achieve in India on a large scale.”

India is currently the world’s largest producer of milk, the second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables and has a substantial production of marine agriculture, meat and poultry products. Overall, the cold chain market for perishable products logistics is projected to reach INR 2,618 Bn by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 14.8% during 2019-2024 in the country.

FreshToHome competes with the likes of ZappFresh, Licious, BigBasket, etc which also cater to the perishable meat industry. There is a $50 Bn opportunity in the fragmented Indian fish market and the $30 Bn market size in poultry.

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