Bengaluru-based gourmet meat start-up Licious, has announced that it has secured $10 million in a Series B round of funding. The round was led by company’s existing investors Mayfield India and 3one4 Capital.
Along with the existing investors, Sistema Asia Fund and Neoplux Technology Fund have also participated in this round of funding. With the new capital infusion, the company will now be spending money to fuel growth plans and facilitate expansion into markets such as Hyderabad and Delhi-NCR.
This investment also marks the first funding by Sistema Asia in a startup focused in India’s consumer segment. Sistema Asia is a Russia-based venture capital fund that recently completed three investments in the technology space. Also, the funding marks South Korea’s Neoplux Technology Fund’s foray into the Indian market.
Commenting on this, Abhay Hanjura, co-founder at Licious, said,
We are excited to announce our Series B funding of $10 million, as it comes in the wake of rapid expansion plans that we have set out for the company’s growth.
Adding to that, Vivek Gupta, co-founder of the startup, said,
The Series B funds will greatly aid us in beefing up our back-end and expanding in newer markets after strongly laying the foundation in the Bangalore market.
Licious was set up in June 2015 and had raised $1 million in angel funding from TV Mohandas Pai in September that year. It offers end-to-end meat delivery service, starting from procurement, storage, and delivery. The company had previously raised Series A funds of $3 million from 3one4 Capital and Mayfield Capital.
Through strict high-quality internal checks, Licious procures meat from reliable sources and uses patented, vacuum sealed and temperature controlled containers to deliver items such as chicken, lamb and seafood.
The company was founded by Abhay Hanjura, a science graduate from Bangalore University, and Vivek Gupta, a chartered accountant. Licious owns and operates a fully automated meat processing unit at Hennur in Bengaluru as well as 11 delivery centres, and employs around 250 people. According to the firm, it receives nearly 15,000 orders per month on average.
