Online platform for fresh meat and seafood, FreshToHome, has raised $20 million from Iron Pillar and Joe Hirao in its Series B round of funding. The fresh investment for the Bengaluru-based startup comes within three months of $11 million round led by HongKong based CE Ventures.
The capital will be deployed towards expansion within India and overseas. With operations in nine cities in India, FreshToHome had recently ventured into Mumbai, Pune and UAE.
The four-year-old startup founded by Shan Kadavil and Mathew Joseph has a wide array of products ranging from antibiotic-residue free chicken, tender mutton, chemical-free fish and ready-to-cook products.
As of now, it claims to clock 14,000 orders a day and processes 20 tons of fresh food.
FreshToHome sources meat and seafood directly from 1,500 fishermen and farmers, and has amassed 6,50,000 customers. On the revenue front, it claims Rs 200 crore in annualised sales.
Besides procurement from farmers and fisherman, FreshToHome manages microloan for them to increase their production. Citing sources, a TechCrunch report said that Amazon India and Flipkart had shown interest to acquire some stake in FreshToHome.
In the online fresh meat category, Licious is the largest player that had last scooped up $25 million from Japan’s Nichirei Corp. Gurugram-based Zappfresh, Bigbasket, and Easymeat also operate in the segment.
Last year, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) had launched a ‘Clean and safe meat’ initiative to ensure the availability of clean and safe meat products to consumers. The regulator had also conducted mandatory third-party audits of supply chains of e-commerce companies that sell meat and meat products.
