Investors Love For Food: Yumist, HolaChef & Frsh Gets Funding

Gurgaon-based Yumist, & Frsh and Mumbai-based Holachef, all three working in food space has raised funding. Yumist has grabbed Series A funding led by Orios Venture Partners, while India Quotient has backed HolaChef and Frsh.

Yumist, founded by Ex-Zomato, Alok Jain, along with restaurateur Abhimanyu Maheshwari, launched last year allows users to order and receive food quickly. Through Yumist mobile app, users can select a meal, mention the address and the food is delivered in a small span of time. The startup has raised about $1 Mn in funding which it plans to use for building its technology platform, expand services and towards marketing. The startup plans to cover all of Gurgaon and the NCR by the end-2015 and further will enter the Metros by early 2016.

“We have a centralised kitchen that can serve an entire city. All our recipes undergo rigorous testing, and through use of food science, we can reproduce the best quality food, using the best ingredients, in the shortest time possible,” said Abhimanyu Maheshwari, co-founder and chief operating officer at YuMist.

FRSH, a startup founded by two IIT Delhi pass-outs, Badal Goel & Sumit Kumar has raised about $250k – $200k. FRSH allows users to place orders online through its website which it delivers quickly. “Select where you want, Select when you want, Select what you want and Relax.”

While Holachef is founded by Saurabh Saxena, along with his IIT-Bombay batchmate Anil Gelra and Ritu Rana in May last year has raised INR 2 Cr. in funding. The startup is betting on their predictive algorithms which will be able to predict the type of demand that exists and create supply accordingly with their chefs, says the founder. The startup had started its operations initially in Mumbai’s Powai area, and has now expanded to areas like Mulund, Andheri West, Ghatkopar and Malad and further, it is targeting 200 orders per day by February end.

Food is $50 billion industry in India, out of which only 5-6% is organized currently. “Food is entirely unorganized. Real estate and cost of capital make offline chains tough to turn profitable,” says Anand Lunia, founder, India Quotient.

In December last year, Bangalore-based food delivery startup Spoonjoy had also raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Sachin Bansal (Co-Founder Flipkart) and Mekin Maheshwari (CPO Flipkart), Abhishek Goyal (Founder, Tracxn) and Sahil Barua (Co-Founder, Delhivery).

Tinyowl, was yet another startup which had raised $3 Mn from Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners last year.