Licious bags $25 Mn Series D round led by Japan's Nichirei Corp

Within three months of raising $25 million Series C round, fresh meat and seafood brand Licious has scooped up another $25 million in the latest round led by Japan's Nichirei Corp.

Early backers 3one4 Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India, UCLA, Sistema Asia Fund also participated in Series D round.

The startup is currently serving partly in Bengaluru, NCR, and Hyderabad. With the latest proceeds, it's planning to expand its operations in 7 cities including Mumbai, Pune, and Chennai by the early next year.

A significant part of the funding will also be deployed towards ramping up its product portfolio and supply chain management.

Licious has built a farm-to-fork business model with an entire back-end supply chain. It ensures the quality and freshness of each product from the time of procurement, processing, storage to reach the end consumer.

Besides raw meat, Licious also entered into spreads, marinades, and pickles space.

Founded in 2015 by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, Licious is amongst few startups with FSSC 22000 Food Safety System Certification that is serving partially penetrated premium meat eaters market in the country.

Till date, Licious is sitting on a pile of $64 million risk capital. Other startups in this segment are Zappfresh, EasyMeat, MeatRoot and a few others.

In March, Deepanshu Manchanda and Shruti Gochhwal-led Zappfresh had bagged $3 million from Amit Burman, Vice Chairman of Dabur India and SIDBI Venture Capital.

To ensure the availability of clean and safe meat products to consumers, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) had conducted mandatory third-party audits of supply chains of e-commerce companies including Licious that sell meat and meat products.