Cloud kitchen brand Rebel Foods recently scooped up $175 million in its Series F round led by Qatar Investment Authority and participated by existing investors. The investment marked the entry of the first full-stack food-tech company into the coveted club of unicorns.
Unlike aggregators, full-stack platforms control every part of the food business: right from cooking to delivery. Besides its own app, Rebel leverages online ordering platforms such as Swiggy and Zomato as distribution channels.
During the recent funding round, Rebel Foods did not divulge the details such as stake acquired by the round leader and fresh shareholding. Fintrackr has decoded those details along with the round split through the company’s regulatory filings.
Rebel Foods has allotted 122,647 Series F preference shares at an issue price of Rs 115,575.66 per share to raise Rs 1,417.5 crore or $189 million. QIA has led with Rs 1012.5 crore followed by Coatue and Evolvence India which invested Rs 243 crore and Rs 162 crore respectively.
Following the fresh allotment of shares, Sequoia remains the largest stakeholder in the company with 27.5%. Coatue and Lightbox are the next on the cap table with 21.44% and 10.75% stake respectively. Rebel Foods co-founder and CEO Jaydeep Barman has a 9.13% stake in the company.
Lead investor of this round QIA has acquired a 9.09% stake in Rebel Foods.
Responding to Entrackr's queries, Rebel Foods said its valuation was $1.42 billion after the Series F round. However, it did not comment on the shareholding pattern.
Rebel Foods became the 31st unicorn this year and the first from the foodtech space. The company owns homegrown brands such as Faasos, Behrouz Biryani and Ovenstory Pizza and claims to operate more than 45 brands across 10 countries such as India, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Singapore and others.
On Wednesday, the company announced that it is expanding its presence in Southeast Asian markets via its old partner Foodpanda. According to the company, it intends to launch more than 10 online food brands in over 2,000 outlets across Asia.
Rebel Foods gets more than 60% of its order volume from Swiggy and Zomato. The company is also gearing up for a public listing and working towards an IPO in the next 18-24 months.
With this, the Jaydeep Barman-led firm joins several growth and late-stage companies including Byju’s, Urban Company, Cars24 and CarDekho which are contemplating public listing sometime in 2023.
Rebel Foods directly competes with Box8 whereas its portfolio attracts competition from several brands and various cloud kitchens. The company recently picked up a minority stake in an omnichannel biryani chain: Biryani Blues.
Update: We have updated the headline and made a correction in the story to reflect Sequoia is the largest stakeholder in Rebel Foods. SGI is a part of Sequoia which was represented as a separate stakeholder in the previous version of the story.