Fresh meat and seafood brand Licious has raised $25 million in a Series-C growth round led by Bertelsmann India, Vertex Ventures along with UCLA and existing investors Mayfield India, 3one4 Capital, Sistema Asia Fund and InnoVen Capital.
The funds will be used to expand to new cities, growing the value-added product category, and strengthening the supply chain.
The fund-raising announcement comes on the back of Licious announcing its plans to enter the Mumbai and Pune by end of 2018 adding to its current presence across Delhi NCR, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
“To be able to build a transformational, category leading food brand in one of the most complex and underserved sectors requires conviction and innovation at a fundamental level. In the past 3 years we have confidently led the way with every milestone. With investors existing and new sharing our conviction in building an ecosystem which challenges the status quo, we are extremely bullish about our plans going ahead. These funds will greatly aid us in deepening and widening our market presence and enable us to offer new products and services our customers will love.” said Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, co-founders, Licious.
Founded in 2015 by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, Licious is built on the farm to fork business model, which owns the entire back-end supply chain powered by stringent cold chain control to maintain the quality and freshness of each product from the time of procurement, processing, storage to the time it reaches the end consumer.
“Direct-to-Consumer fresh food start-ups are re-defining how India produces, distributes and buys food. Licious with their robust supply chain and seamless farm to fork model, addresses some of the biggest challenges faced by the consumer when it comes to their purchase experience and quality of product. We have strong conviction in the founding team’s vision and strategy to build Licious as the most trusted brand for fresh food and gourmet food products, in India” said Pankaj Makkar, Managing Director, Bertelsmann India Investments.