Just a day after announcing the launch of its ‘Hyper Local Desserts Marketplace’ called Indulge, food-tech startup InnerChef has announced that it had raised $1.66 Mn (INR 11 Cr) in its pre-series A round of funding from a bevy of leading angel investors.
The round was led by Phanindra Sama (Founder- RedBus),Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Founder – PayTM), Anupam Mittal (Founder – Shaadi.com),Vishal Gondal (Founder- GOQii), Sateesh Andara’s (ex DFJ) new fund, Murugavel (Founder – Bharat Matrimony), Dinesh Agarwal (Founder- Indiamart and Tolexo), Neeraj Roy (Founder- Hungama), Roshan Abbas (Founder – Encompass, A WPP company), Teru Sato (Founder – NetPrice & Beenos, Japan), Atsushi Tiara(Senior Softbank executive), Hiro San (M&S Fund, Japan), Boris Raybov (Investor from Silicon Valley) and TA Venture from Europe.
The firm will use the proceeds to expand its footprint and launch 10 new kitchens across Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. Additionally, InnerChef will also focus on building Indulge – a Hyper Local Desserts Marketplace that it launched yesterday. The new marketplace will bring the finest desserts from home bakers and neighbourhood bakeries right to a customer’s doorstep. The platform will be initially launched in Gurgaon and South Delhi, and will subsequently aggregate 100K home bakers across 100 Indian cities within a year.
InnerChef’s co-founder Rajesh Sawhney stated, “We are extremely pleased to have received support from the leading Indian and International Technology founders. We believe this demonstrates their confidence in our Kitchen-in-the-cloud business model, strength of our team, and awesome growth trajectory since the launch in April 2015. We are a Big-Data-Food-tech company that believes in continuous innovation across all aspects of business and technology to delight our customers.”
InnerChef’s funding is the latest of funding to follow in the Food tech space which is witnessing a lot of interest from investors. This month another Gurgaon-based food-tech startup, Bueno Foods, has raised $600,000 from a high net worth individual in its first external fundraise. Similarly, another startup HolaChef raised funding from Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons. This investment by Tata is a part of the series A round funding, which was raised in June from Kalaari Capital and India Quotient.
Food retailing market in India is $300 Bn large, and Indian restaurant market is pegged at $50 Bn. The home food delivery market is growing at 40% per annum and is expected to be $10 Bn in size by 2016. With the advent of internet and mobile, the combination of Food + Tech is disrupting old business models and is creating new paradigms. According to Tracxn report on food-tech industry, the space has attracted over 40 investments in just last six months, and the overall investments reaching to $2.3Bn.
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