Dairy Tech Startup Country Delight Raises $25 Mn To Enter Grocery Delivery

Gurugram-based milk delivery startup Country Delight has raised $25 Mn in a Series C round led by Elevation Capital. Existing backers Matrix Partners, Orios Venture Partners and IIFL PE Fund also participated in the funding round.

With an aim to revolutionise milk consumption in India, Country Delight was founded in 2015 by Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal. It provides locally sourced, natural, cow, buffalo milk, bread, ghee, and paneer to customer doorsteps directly to the consumer’s doorstep.

The startup plans to use the funds to launch food essentials such as fruits and vegetables, cold-pressed edible oils, wheat, batters, pulses, spices, pickles, and jams, in the next 6-9 months.

The company is operational in Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Pune, and Mumbai and plans to launch its Chennai operations in the next three weeks.

“Technology plays a very big role in building quality traceability and supply chain at scale – all of this while staying very capital efficient. We want to give our customers the best quality products, at the lowest possible price and directly to their doorstep,” Gade said.

Country Delight sources its produce from its network of 500 farmers within a 150-200 km radius. It claims to serve 1.5 Mn customers and fulfil close to 3 Mn orders a month, Gade said.

In February 2019, Country Delight had raised $9.8 Mn in equity financing from venture capital firm, existing investors Matrix Partners Existing investor Orios Venture Partners had also participated in that round.

In January Country Delight had raised $7 Mn -$10 Mn in a Series B funding round which was also led by Matrix Partners.

“The company has a truly unique business model and is one of the few consumer businesses in India with phenomenal retention metrics,” Deepak Gaur, Partner, Elevation Capital, told ET.

Avnish Bajaj, managing director, Matrix India, said, “The business has expanded into fresh food, and the resilience of the full stack and digital-first business model was evident during the recent Covid-19 disruption with an acceleration in the growth of the business.”  

Country Delight competes with Milkbasket, DailyNinja among other players in the highly competitive milktech segment. 

Milking The High Demand

Statistically, India accounts for 1/5th of global milk production, making it the world’s largest producer, but the bulk of consumption is domestic. According to the latest report by market research firm IMARC Group, the dairy market in India reached a value of Rs. 10,527 billion in 2019. The expected CAGR is 15% over the next few years.

In the recent past, investors have started to shift their focus on milktech startups. Gurugram-headquartered hyperlocal delivery startup Milkbasket in July last year raised $2.17 Mn debt from Innoven Capital. This effectively closed the company’s Series B funding round at $12.7 Mn. 

The micro delivery startup in September also went in advanced talks with private equity funds to raise $50 Mn in Series C round.