InnerChef Raises ₹ 43 Crores in a Pre-Series B Funding from Mistletoe, Das Capital, Others

Shared Cloud-kitchen Platform, InnerChef, today announced that it has successfully completed its Pre-Series B funding round, raising $6.5 million (INR 43 crore) to further solidify its position in the fast-growing food tech space. Multiple investors including Mistletoe, Das Capital, Saha Capital, M&S Partners and Brand Capital participated in this financing round.

Since its launch in 2015, InnerChef InnerChef has raised a total of over $10M in funding so far. Its lead investor is Mistletoe, a Japanese investment firm by serial entrepreneur Taizo Son.

As a brand InnerChef has emerged as the pioneer of shared cloud kitchen platform and operates multiple brands namely Healthie, YumYumDilli, YumYumSouth, Bombay Sandwich Company and Thalis of India under its umbrella. InnerChef operates a network of 25 kitchens across 6 cities in India: Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Noida, Delhi and Gurgaon.

InnerChef has emerged as a leader in the shared cloud kitchens space. Under its multi-brand strategy, InnerChef has built a portfolio of fast-growing brands like Healthie, Bombay Sandwich Company, Thalis of India, YumYumDilli and YumYumSouth.

InnerChef’s healthy food brand, Healthie, is a pioneer in the healthy food delivery space and the market leader in its category.

Rajesh Sawhney, Founder and CEO, InnerChef, says, “InnerChef’s multi-brand strategy has delivered outstanding results in 2018. The fresh funding will be used to strengthen the brand portfolio. Healthie, for instance, has become a category-defining brand in 2018. We are also using the fresh round of funding to further strengthen our shared kitchen platform across India."

InnerChef competes with the likes of Freshmenu, HolaChef and Faasos. In July last year, food tech startups which raised funds include HungerBox that raised $4.5 million in a Series A funding round led by South Korean investment firm Neoplux and India’s private equity fund Sabre Partners.

CCube Angels Network, a Singapore based angel investing network has invested Rs.3.5 crore in Inner Being,a Nutri-food start up based out of Hyderabad

In 2017, at time when food tech startup like Yumist had shutdown, InnerChef has found a place in India’s top 5 food-tech startups in terms of traction.

About Mistletoe, the Japenese investment firm had led the $2.5 M funding round of InnerChef in 2016 and at that time it was Mistletoe's first investment in India.

Mistletoe Japan Leads $2.5M Investment Round in InnerChef

InnerChef is pleased to announce its partnership with Mistletoe Japan. Mistletoe has lead the latest round of $2.5 M funding in Gurugram based food-tech platform InnerChef. This is Mistletoe's first investment in India. M&S Fund Singapore and other existing investors are also participating in this round.

Mistletoe is funded and owned by Taizo Son, a serial entrepreneur and youngest brother of Masayoshi Son, Chairman of SoftBank. He is also the founder of Japan-based mobile gaming company GungHo, in which SoftBank had acquired a 51% share in 2013 for $1.53 billion. GungHo bought back most of its shares from SoftBank earlier this year.

InnerChef co-founder Rajesh Sawhney said, “I believe this deal is about laying the foundation of a long-term partnership between two unique organizations InnerChef and Mistletoe that have a shared vision of future with regards to food and agriculture. I also think InnerChef has a very different vision and a differentiated product experience from the rest of the companies in this space. We plan to invest in building a high growth food-tech platform and differentiate our experience even further. We have started adding more kitchens across our four metros of NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Our focus is to deepen our presence in these four metros for the next six months.”

About InnerChef: Started in 2015 by Rajesh Sawhney, Sanjeev Singhal and Bal DiGhent, InnerChef offers ready-to-eat meals, ready-to-cook meals and a wide choice of desserts. It is currently operational in seven Indian cities and ships over 100,000 meals per month. Desserts on InnerChef platform are provided by women food entrepreneurs, who are mainly neighborhood chefs. InnerChef plans to enable 10,000 women entrepreneurs on its platform in coming 5 years. In March 2016, InnerChef had acqui-hired two startups - Bengaluru-based EatonGo and Gurgaon-based Flavour Labs.

About Mistletoe, Japan: Since its launch in 2013, Mistletoe has made over 10 investments globally and its portfolio includes South-east Asia's largest unicorn with a valuation of $3.75 billion - Singapore-based internet company, GARENA, and Silicon Valley-based unicorn, Zoox, a driverless car startup.

"Mistletoe explored investment opportunities of the corrective impacts on food and farming sector. We believe that InnerChef would become the crucial model of improving the food and farming ecosystem in India," said Atisushi Tairo, chief growth officer, Mistletoe. Taira, who was previously the CEO at Bharti SoftBank, said it sees the chaos in various Indian sectors as an opportunity to leapfrog by leveraging the latest technologies of AI, robotics, IoT, and internet. "There is an attractive pool of talent that consist of ex-Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and smart young people graduating from top-notch universities. Huge opportunities plus upcoming technologies and infrastructure make India a big interest for us," he said.