Restaurant PoS Startup Petpooja Raises $4.5 Mn Series B

Restaurant PoS (point-of-sale) startup Petpooja has raised $4.5 Mn in a Series B funding round led by Ritesh Agarwal led Aroa Ventures. GVFL, Udaan, Dr Mayur Desai and other angel investors participated in the round. 

In February last year, B2B ecommerce unicorn Udaan had invested in Petpooja.

Founded in 2011 by Apurv Patel and Parthiv Patel, Ahmedabad-based Petpooja began its journey as a simple PoS billing solution for restaurants. Since then, its product portfolio has grown to become a ‘complete restaurant operating system’, offering modules for inventory management, CRM and online ordering among others. 

According to the startup, its software currently powers over 25,000 restaurant outlets across India, the UAE and Africa, logging over 1.5 Mn daily orders and recording an annualised GMV of $2.5 Bn. Its clients include large chains like La Pino’z, Thalappakatti, Giani’s etc. 

“Foodservice has been the most digitized market with over 100 B2C players in the field, including delivery aggregators, dine-in ordering, online ordering, table reservation, loyalty, payments, ERP, etc. Our 100+ integrations allow restaurateurs to manage and interact with all these players from a single screen,” said Petpooja cofounder Parthiv Patel, commenting on the funding. 

The startup plans to use the freshly raised capital to expand its reach in the Middle East and Africa regions and to expand its Supplier’s hub which allows customers on its platform to band together for bulk purchases of ingredients and equipment. It has already onboarded 5,000 suppliers and plans to onboard 50,000 in the next two years. 

Speaking on the funding, Gaurav Gulati, head and CIO, Aroa Ventures, said, “After more than a year of living under COVID-19 induced lockdowns and restrictions, the foodservice industry is getting back on track. Now, more than ever, restaurateurs need to take advantage of a product like Petpooja to seamlessly handle their operations and order management tasks. F&B outlets using Petpooja’s AI-driven solutions and analytics have consistently outperformed their peers. We strongly believe in Petpooja’s vision to digitally transform restaurant operations and to drive profitability for restaurant owners.”

The Indian restaurant industry is estimated to be worth INR 75,000 Cr ($1.07 Bn) and is growing at a CAGR of 7% according to Smergers. India has more than 1.5 Mn eating outlets of which 3,000 outlets forms the organised segment. The organised segment, however, is growing rapidly at an annual rate of 16%. The quick-service sector is growing the fastest — at an annual rate of 21%

Petpooja is competing for this industry along with the likes of Delhi-based POSist and Gurugram-based LimeTray.

Update | 17th Nov, 10:15 

The story has been updated with the right information of Aroa Ventures’ founder.