Thrasio-Style Foodtech Curefoods Acquires Five Food Brands To Strengthen Its D2C Play

Cloud kitchen startup Curefoods has announced its acquisition of five D2C food brands across the country.

Currently, Curefoods has 20 brands in its portfolio including the five new acquisitions. The brands include:

• Mumbai-based legacy pizza brand-Juno’s Pizza
• Bengaluru-based cupcake brand-Cupcake Noggins (it will be merged into existing delicacy brand CakeZone
• Bengaluru-based organic ice cream brand-Iceberg
• Delhi NCR-based pizza delivery startup-Nomad Pizzas, and
• Jaipur-based multi-brand cloud kitchen company-White Kitchens

In October 2021, Curefoods had acquired seven food brands — MasalaBox, Paratha Box, CakeZone, Ammi’s Biryani, Olio, Crusto’s and Chaat Street. It had also signed exclusive franchise rights of pizza cloud kitchen YumLane, Indian and Mughlai food cloud kitchen Aligarh House, and biryani cloud kitchen Sharief Bhai.

The startup claims the partnerships have been instrumental in growing Curefoods’ footprint across 10 cities and triggering revenue growth of 50% quarter-on-quarter.

As a part of its continued focus to reach 20 cities encompassing 200 outlets in 2022, Curefoods will be looking to onboard five more such brands by the first half of 2022, bringing greater value to its D2C portfolio and the food ecosystem at large.

Curefoods’ Playbook In Building India’s Thrasio Foodtech

Curefoods is leveraging its end-to-end farm-to-fork technology and a marketing stack that focuses on consumers to integrate these brands into the business. Moreover, it claims that its expertise in running central kitchen facilities will allow it to power these acquired food brands and help them grow at a faster rate.

Currently, the 2020-founded foodtech acquirer has over 75 cloud kitchens. By the end of 2022, Curefoods looks to acquire 35+ brands, paying EBITDA multiples of 8-15x, eyeing an ARR of $100 Mn.

Curefoods aims to create a standardised, efficient, and hygienic kitchen network across the nation — starting with Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai, where it has made most of its acquisitions.

The Ankit Nagori-led startup had raised $13 Mn in Series A round in August 2021, led by Iron Pillar, Nordstar and Binny Bansal.

Founder Ankit Nagori stated that India’s online food delivery marketing is estimated to touch approx $8 Bn in 2022, and Curefoods wants to play a huge role in shaping this segment.

“To cater to multiple eating occasions, cuisines, flavour profiles and regional nuances, we are bringing on a plethora of such companies – each a strong contender in its space with great products to offer. Our goal is to equip them further with our tech and business expertise to enable them to continue serving up some great dishes for customers,” Nagori said in a statement.

The Market Overview

Curefoods competes with foodtech unicorn Rebel Foods, which operates 450+ kitchens & 4K+ internet restaurants globally across 60+ cities in 10 countries, in the cloud kitchen category. Some of the popular brands under Rebel Foods include Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, Ovenstory Pizza, Mandarin Oak, The Good Bowl, SLAY Coffee, Sweet Truth, Wendy’s among others.

Besides giants like Zomato and Swiggy, who have entered the cloud kitchen market along with Rebel Foods, Curefoods competes with the likes of Food Darzee, Healthie, Box8, among several others.