Fresh meat and seafood brand Licious has raised $52 million in its Series G round, led by IIFL’s Late Stage Tech Fund and Avendus, a long-lived director told ET. The round values the company post-money at $1.05 billion, making it the lag entrant to the coveted unicorn club, or those startups with valuations of $1billion or even more.
“ We will use these finances to grow our offline business, further our ready-to- eat product portfolio and for our geographic expansion,” Vivek Gupta, co-founder of Licious, told ET. In July, the company raised $192 million as part of its Series F round, led by the Singapore government’s investment company Temasek, and Multiples Private Equity, valuing it at $650 million.
The direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand also counts coffers cognate as Brunei Investment Agency, 3one4 Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, Vertex Growth Fund, and Vertex Chances Southeast Asia and India as investors. “ We’ll opportunistically look at growing inorganically by acquiring junior businesses in the ancillary members and business areas,” Gupta added.
The company’s current gain run rate stands at Rs.1000 crore, he said. “ Having grown around 60% since our last fundraise we anticipate to close the dollars-and-cents day at Rs.1500 crore,” he added. According to the company, the D2C call in India is at an arc point and is anticipated to attain a size of additional than $100 billion by 2025.
The Covid-19 plague has played a major capacity in accelerating the sector’s growth. “ The fresh flesh and seafood sector is still largely underserved, unorganised, and holds a vast room of $40 billion.
We will continue to piece the rubric through investments in technology for repertoire chain excellence, product invention, gift, and merchandiser mate upgrades,” said Abhay Hanjura, cofounder of Licious. Licious presently serves 14 metropolises including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Kochi, Puducherry, Vizag, Vijayawada and Kolkata. It has delivered to fresh than 2 million patrons till date.
According to the company, it serves over 1 million orders every month, with over 90 replay freaks across requests. “ Licious has fractured the meat and seafood rubric, which has largely been unorganized and underserved. Licious’ rivet on product quality, originality and invention has created a strong brand making them the undisputed rubric leader. Licious is among the fleetly- growing D2C brands and is one of the uncountable consumer businesses in India with really strong return retention pars,” said Chetan Naik, the fund executive of IIFL’s $500 million Late Stage Tech Fund.