Curefoods, a cloud kitchen startup, said it has closed a funding round of about Rs 300 crore led by Flipkart founder Binny Bansal’s Three State Ventures. It includes primary and secondary investments in the Bengaluru-based firm, which is run by former Flipkart executive Ankit Nagori.
Curefoods also raised debt in this round but did not disclose details.
Three State Ventures invested Rs 240 crore in this round, which also saw participation from existing investors IronPillar, Chiratae Ventures, ASK Finance and Winter Capital.
What the funds will be used for
Curefoods plans to use the new capital to expand its geographical reach and diversify its brands into offline formats from the current online-only cloud kitchen model, said a company statement.
ET had reported on March 10 that Bansal was looking to invest more in Curefoods as well as acquire secondary shares held by Cultfit in Curefoods. The cloud kitchen startup was hived off from fitness startup Cultfit, founded by Mukesh Bansal and Nagori in 2016.
Discover the stories of your interest
ETtech
“Our investors understand our brand vision very well and are aligned to our long-term goal of creating multiple 500 crore brands,” said Nagori. “This funding will allow us to reach new customers and markets while also targeting our offline model expansion.”
Binny Bansal held about 5% stake in Curefoods which is slated to increase to more than 12% after the investment, ET had reported last month. Curefoods said in a statement that it had grown more than 300% year-on-year in 2022-23, terming it “remarkable growth” for the brand and its revenue.
Expansion plans
The company is aiming to expand to tier-1 and tier-2 cities in northern and western India. It said it continues to focus on profitability while seeking growth and a pan-India presence in the coming years.
The startup currently serves about 200 locations in 15 cities by a back-end operation of seven food factories and about 150 multi-brand cloud kitchens. Nomad Pizza and Sharief Bhai are among its fastest-growing brands, growing at about 50% on a quarterly basis, it said.
On the back of the new funding and expansion, Curefoods is aiming for an annualised revenue run rate of Rs 1,000 crore by the end of 2023. By then, it plans to open 50 additional locations with the goal of managing two million orders a month.
In December 2022, it recorded more than a million orders in a month for the first time.
Stay on top of technology and startup news that matters. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest and must-read tech news, delivered straight to your inbox.
Denial of responsibility!FineRadar is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
ETtech