Exclusive: Country Delight scores Rs 163 Cr round led by Elevation Capital

Direct to consumer or D2C dairy brand Country Delight is raising Rs 163 crore in a Series C round led by Elevation Capital (previously SAIF Partners). Existing backers Matrix Partners, Orios Venture along with IIFL PE Fund have also participated in this round

The five year old dairy products company would allot 3,62,140 Series C2 preference shares to these investors at an issue price of Rs 4,501 per share, shows regulatory filings.

Elevation Capital will pick preference capital worth Rs 92.04 crore while both Matrix Partners and Orios Ventures will pour in Rs 18.8 crore each. IIFL India private Equity will also invest Rs 33.4 crore in this investment round. Prom

The fresh proceeds in Country Delight have come at a time when subscription commerce companies (aka milktech) either have perished or are struggling to find new backers. Despite sound unit economics and stickiness, Milkbasket has been unable to score a new round.

With the Series C round, Country Delight has raised over Rs 231 crore in total capital. Unlike subscription commerce platforms, it’s a full stack model (farm to table) and has no intermediaries.  The company sources milk and eggs directly through farmers and processes several products such as paneer, curd, ghee, bread et al. It claims to have over five dozen stringent tests for impurities and toxins. 

As per Fintrackr estimates, Country Delight has been valued nearly Rs 1,050 crore (post money) in this transaction. MoneyControl had reported about its late stage talks with Elevation Capital for this round in August. 

For Elevation Capital, Country Delight is one of its several bets in the overall D2C segment. It had made audacious bets on Zovi in the fashion segment and Urban Ladder in furniture. However, both companies didn’t go well. 

Meanwhile, its investment in FirstCry has been considered successful.

While D2C dairy and daily essentials space is in nascent stage in India and Country Delight seems to be the only scaled player, Gurugram-based company faces some competition from publicly traded company Parag Foods that ventured into farm to table space in a few cities in Maharashtra.

While the company has not filed its annual report for the fiscal ended in March 2020, it had recorded operating revenue of Rs 65.02 crore in FY19, incurring a loss of Rs 19.71 crore at an EBITDA margin of -25.53% during the same period.