Rebel Foods announced on Tuesday that it has earmarked $150 Mn for spearheading strategic brand investments and acquisition strategy in India as well as globally. The decision comes at a time when competition is heating up in the cloud kitchen space. Notably, Rebel Foods had earned a unicorn tag earlier this year after raising $175 Mn in October. Eventually becoming the first startup from the cloud kitchen space to cross the $1 Bn valuation.  

Rebel Foods’ strategy of investing in existing brands and scaling it further is apparently driven from Thrasio-style-model. For all those who are not aware, Thrasio is a successful American startup that is known for buying hottest and highly promising brands and consequently scaling their business by optimizing their marketing costs and providing them technological assistance.

The Mumbai based startup currently operates several popular cloud kitchen brands. This includes Fasoos, Behrouz Biryani and Oven Story Pizza. The company initially ran its brand Fasoos as Quick Service Restaurant (QSR). However, the increasing overhead cost and the funding crunch compelled the startup to opt for a pivot and finally opted for a cloud kitchen model.

Leveraging the benefit of cost efficiency that inherently comes with cloud kitchen model, Rebel Foods scripted a successful comeback and today stands as one of the poster boys of India’s nascent cloud kitchen industry. Interestingly, the company boosts a good presence in the international market including Indonesia, UAE, United Kingdom, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia.   

Meanwhile, the landscape of domestic cloud kitchen industry is witnessing intense competition. Rebel Foods’ rival player Box8 recently raised $40 Mn from global VC giant Tiger Global. Another prominent player Curefoods has recently scooped up fresh funds to implement its own Thrasio style acquisition strategy. Notably, Curefoods is founded by famous startup entrepreneur Ankit Nagori.     

The post Cloud Kitchen startup Rebel Foods earmarks $150 Mn for acquiring more brands appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

Cloud Kitchen startup Curefoods, started by CureFit co-founder Ankit Nagori, announced on Friday that it has acquired 6 cloud kitchen brands in one swoop. The Bengaluru based company has said that it will continue to maintain a strong appetite for acquisition as it plans to onboard 25 more cloud kitchen brands in near future.

The latest acquired brands include CakeZone, MasalaBpx and ParathaBox while Curefoods has secured exclusive online franchising rights of YumLane, Sharief Bhai and Aligarh House.

In recent years the niche area of cloud kitchen has gained lot of traction. Much of this credit will probably go to Rebel foods, which has emerged as the poster boy of this niche area. Few weeks back, Rebel foods emerged as the first unicorn from the nascent cloud kitchen space.     

Curefoods certainly wants to get where Rebel foods is but the Ankit Nagori led company is apparently following a different strategy. While Rebel foods built all its successful cloud kitchen brands from scratch, CureFoods is seeking to consolidate its cloud kitchen biz by aggressively pursuing an acquisition strategy.

Nagori has told a leading media portal that it will look to acquire popular local brands that are listed on Swiggy and Zomato and help them scale their business. Nagori told that these local brands have the potential to grow but don’t have the resources to do so. CureFoods will fill this void, he further added.

This strategy seems to be directly inspired by popular American unicorn Thrasio, which acquires fast-growing businesses listed on Amazon. However, for Curefoods to pull off such a strategy, it will have to keep raising funds. Curefoods recently raised $13 Mn from the likes of Iron pillar and Binny Bansal. Additionally, it also closed $10 Mn debt funding from Alteria Capital.     

The post To scale up its Cloud Kitchen Biz, Curefoods Acquires slew of cloud kitchen brands appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

Rebel foods, which operates plethora of cloud kitchen brands, is the latest Indian startup to cross the billion dollar valuation. The Mumbai based startup announced on Thursday that it has raised $175 Mn in a Series F round led by Qatar Investment Authority with participation from existing investors Coatue and Evolvence. The fresh funding has pushed the startup’s market valuation to $1.4 Bn.

Rebel foods becoming unicorn marks the hat-trick, since three new startups have embraced the coveted club during the last three consecutive days. Licious, CoinSwitch and now Rebel Foods. Over all, Rebel Foods is the 31^st unicorn of India.

Founded by Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee, Rebel Foods has come a long way. Started out as chain of Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) that sold kebab rolls under the brand name Fasoos, the startup decided to pull down the shutters down on its offline business. The high rentals and other adversarial factors propelled the company to make this decision and switched completely to cloud kitchen business.

Under the cloud kitchen business, the company introduced several brands that have resonated with foodies and has eventually taken the company to never before heights. Behrouz Biryani, Mandarin Oak and Ovenstory Pizza are some of the brands that have done extremely well.   

The company also aggressively operates in the international market, operating nearly 45 brands across 10 countries. Following the Series F round, Rebel Foods is likely to further increase its international footprint.   

Rebel Foods’ co-founders have already made it clear that they are vying for an IPO in the next 18^th months. If things work out then it may go for an overseas listing and list the company either on NYSE or Nasdaq. However, if things don’t work out then it will go for a domestic listing.  

The post Unicorn Party Continues: IPO Bound Rebel Foods is the latest to Turn Unicorn appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

This fundraising round had taken place last month with investment giant ‘Goldman Sachs’ and Indonesia headquartered on-demand services company ‘GoJek’ participating in the round. Rebel Food, which operates famous brands like Fasoos and Oven Story, commanded a valuation of around $500 Mn (around 3,700 crore).

But it could not be ascertained exactly how amount has Kalanick’s real estate company invested in the Rebel Food. Times of India, after citing unknown sources, claimed that former Uber CEO contributed only a small cheque during last month’s fundraising round.

Today Rebel Food is one of the prominent players in India’s cloud kitchen industry. Cloud Kitchen, which is apparently the carbon copy of the cloud computing concept, runs network of small kitchens mostly at places that incurs lower real estate prices. This obviously helps in cost-cutting and in making the business more scalable.

Owing to the cost friendly approach, today all the top foodtech players are increasingly lapping up cloud kitchen concept including Swiggy and Zomato. Even Ola’s FoodPanda is now diverting its focus on cloud kitchen business.

Meanwhile, Kalanick’s first investment in India’s startup ecosystem marks the investment debut of yet another high-profile entrepreneur, who at one point of time was the darling of the global startup industry. This was, of course, until he was ousted from Uber in 2017.

Kalanick is often credited for turning Uber’s wheel of fortunes and transforming it into one of the most valued startups in the world. However, his tenure was also marked with several scandals and Uber’s unceremonious exit from many key markets including the highly lucrative Chinese market.

The post Uber’s Former Boss Travis Kalanick makes his First Investment in India appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.