Travis Kalanick, co-founder and former CEO of Uber is now tapping Indian shores. Kalanick has reportedly made an investment in Indian cloud kitchen outfit Rebel Foods Pvt Ltd, the parent company of Faasos.
Rebel Foods had already disclosed that it is raising $125 million and the investment by Kalanick is said to be part of this fund-raising activity. As per a Bloomberg report, the investment has been made through City Storage Systems, a real estate venture owned by Kalanick.
After Kalanick was ousted in 2017, he set up an investment fund and has been working on building a kitchen rental service called CloudKitchens through CSS.
When TNM reached out to Rebel Foods, the company declined to comment on the same.
Rebel Foods is a cloud kitchen startup which runs popular brands such as Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, Oven Story, Mandarin Oak, Sweet Truth, the Good Bowl, among others.
It boasts of investors such as Coatue Management, Goldman Sachs, Sequoia Capital and ride-hailing giant Gojek. The venture is valued at just over half a billion dollars.
The startup was founded by Jaydeep Barman, formerly with McKinsey & Co and its dishes get delivered to customers through online restaurants across many cities. There are 250 cloud kitchens owned by Rebel Foods and these are located in 22 cities.
Rebel Foods is raising funds to expand its footprint to 400 kitchens and take its model overseas is South East Asia and the Middle East.
The food delivery business itself is getting a bit crowded in the country with two majors Swiggy and Zomato fighting their own turf wars and half a dozen others including Uber with Uber Eats trying to find ways to expand. Amazon is the next big player expected to enter and act as the disruptor.