Velocity Floats INR 200 Cr Fund To Boost Growth Of Cloud Kitchens

SUMMARY

Velocity aims to empower food and beverage (F&B) brands by offering fast, scalable and flexible financing solutions tailored to their growth needs

Velocity offers revenue-based financing to Indian direct-to-consumer (D2C) and ecommerce platforms. Besides this, the startup also offers these businesses credit cards and payment solutions

The Bengaluru-based startup has backed various F&B brands, including IDC Kitchen, Smoor, Daily Sushi

Revenue-based financing platform Velocity has launched an INR 200 Cr (around $23.5 Mn) fund to boost growth of India’s restaurant and cloud kitchens selling on food aggregator platforms.

With this fund, Velocity aims to empower food and beverage (F&B) brands by offering fast, scalable and flexible financing solutions tailored to their growth needs, it said in a statement.

Founded by Abhiroop Medhekar, Atul Khichariya and Saurav Swaroop in 2020, Velocity offers revenue-based financing to Indian direct-to-consumer (D2C) and ecommerce platforms. Besides this, the startup also offers these businesses credit cards and payment solutions.

“The growing appetite of Indian consumers for diverse culinary experiences, combined with the convenience of online food delivery, is driving remarkable growth in the F&B sector. This shift is also fueling a premiumization trend, as consumers increasingly seek high-quality food and beverage options, reflecting their willingness to spend and indulge in unique dining experiences”, said Khichariya.

Since its inception, the Bengaluru-based startup has backed various F&B brands, including IDC Kitchen, Smoor, Daily Sushi, Brahma Brew Works, Milano Ice Cream, Imperio, Amore Gelato and Babas Chicken.

These brands have used the funding to expand their operations, strengthen supply chains, and boost marketing efforts.

The company claims to have disbursed over INR 1,000 Cr, enabling over 1,200 digital-first businesses, to overcome working capital challenges.

This comes at a time when the Indian startup ecosystem has witnessed a slew of new fund launches in the recent past.

For Instance, this week micro venture capital firm Warmup Ventures, which has backed startups like Boba Bhai, Nitro Commerce, MiniMines and RocketPay among others, has floated its second fund, with a target corpus of INR 300 Cr (around $35.3 Mn).

In October, fintech unicorn Zerodha launched a new fund to support Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects globally.

Similarly in September, early stage venture capital firm Capital A launched its Fund II with a target corpus of INR 400 Cr (about $48 Mn).

In the same month, the union agriculture ministry launched an INR 750 Cr ‘AgriSURE’ fund (Agri Fund for Start-ups & Rural Enterprises) to back agritech and rural area-focussed startups.

Earlier in May, Asset management company 360 ONE Asset launched a secondaries fund, ‘Special Opportunities Fund-12’, with a target corpus of INR 4,000 Cr to invest in late-stage startups.