Mumbai-based foodtech startup Holachef has raised $5 million (INR 323 million approx.) in a Series B round of funding led by existing investor Kalaari Captal. The funding round also saw participation from SIDBI Venture Capital and India Quotient also participated, according to the filings with the Registrar of Companies.
Founded in September 2014 by two IIT Bombay Graduates, Saurabh Saxena and Anil Gelra, the startup aims to deliver home-cooked cuisines to your doorstep and currently operates in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Pune. To order or pre-order, a customer simply needs to log onto the Holachef app, either on desktop or mobile, available on iOS and Android, enter his location order from a new menu.
According to the company, the incoming capital will be used for team building and scaling logistic infrastructure to streamline the business. In July last year, the startup has clocked around $1.95 million from Kalaari Capital and India Quotient, as well as secured about $3.1 million in a Series A round in 2015. This would take the total funding raised by Holachef to around $10 million.
After incurring a loss of around $3.8 million in FY16, high customer acquisition costs have been a major concern for the company. To tackle this problem, Saxena has also revealed plans to make an experimental move of opening the company’s first customer-facing offline kiosk in Mumbai.
“(The offline kiosk) is actually a distribution centre but more presentable and customer-facing so people can buy directly from there as well. If this customer-facing centre is beneficial for marketing, then we may look at opening new distribution centres which are similar,” Saxena said to ET.
While the company does not plan to expand geographically yet, its main focus is to widen its current menu range over the next two months and double its revenues by FY18.