SUMMARY
Samosa Singh plans to expand its production capabilities
This is women-led She Capital’s first investment
Fireside Ventures portfolio includes Tasty Tales, Yogabar
Bengaluru-based food and beverage startup Samosa Singh has raised $2.7 Mn (INR 17 Cr) in Series A funding round led by women-led startups-focused She Capital. Samosa Singh’s previous investors Fireside Ventures also participated in the round, along with Equanimity Investments, AL Trust, and Japan-based AET Fund.
Fireside Ventures had also participated in Samosa Singh’s seed round. Besides Samosa Singh, Fireside Ventures’ portfolio includes Tasty Tales, Vahdam Teas, Yogabar, Bombay Shaving Company, Goodness Beverages and Mamaearth. Samosa Singh is She Capital’s first investment.
Samosa Singh will use this fund to expand the capacity expansion of its central kitchen, which is located in Bengaluru. Most of the food is prepared in the central kitchen to retain the quality and consistency of the product. The product is then distributed to its cloud kitchen and offline stores.
The samosas are cooked at the point of sales, against the orders. The production unit has the capability to produce 25K units a day and Samosa Singh is utilising 90% of it already. Therefore, the company is planning to scale up its capabilities to produce one lakh units a day.
With this funding, the company is also planning to set up 100 cloud kitchens in major South Indian cities by March 2021. Currently, the company operates out of 25 locations in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, out of which 15 are cloud kitchens and the remaining 10 are small kiosks stores in multiplexes. Moreover, the company is also planning to sell products through its website.
Samosa Singh’s cofounder Nidhi Singh told Inc42 that until now the company was focusing on understanding the market and consolidating the product, among other things. “Now everything has been done at a significant level and now we are going to scale it up,” Nidhi added.
Founded in 2016 by Nidhi and Shikhar Veer Singh, Samosa Singh is a street food brand that focuses on Indian nugget-like snacks, samosa. However, the company claims that the samosas prepared by Samosa Singh are 56% lower in fat.
“We were always passionate about something of our own in food and we saw a huge unmet need in the market. We solve an unmet need of the market when it comes to Indian street food and Indian snacks. There is nothing organised here and it’s a huge market,” Nidhi added.
The company relies on food delivery aggregators like Zomato and Swiggy for online others. Samosa Singh also sold its products Uber Eats, before the Uber-owned company was acquired by Zomato.
Speaking about the acquisition, Nidhi said that Zomato-Uber Eats acquisition is only going to enhance the customer experience. She added, “with more organised dataweb and consolidation, Samosa Singh is expecting to see a positive change its customer base.”
In 2019, Samosa Singh recorded a 200% year-on-year(YoY) growth. By March 2020, the company is expected to reach a run rate INR 12 Cr. The company also claims that once all its cloud kitchens are set up by 2021, it will manage to hit INR 4 Cr run rate, monthly.
