Tiger Global leads $40 Mn round in BOX8’s parent

The year may be coming to an end soon, but Tiger Global’s investment spree in Indian startups doesn’t seem to halt. The investment firm has led a $40 million round in EatClub Brands, which operates cloud kitchen brands like BOX8 and MOJO Pizza.

The Mumbai-based full-stack foodtech platform had last raised around $2.5 million as a part of Series C round in January this year.

BOX8 has also rebranded itself to EatClub Brands, thus joining its competitor Rebel Foods that had rebranded its brand Faasos to EatSure in September last year.

It’s worth mentioning that EatClub Brands was reportedly looking to raise a $100 million round. However, it appears that the talks did not materialise. Before this latest round, the company had raised about $30 million across equity and debt from the likes of Indian Angel Network, Mayfield India, IIFL and Trifecta.

EatClub Brands will scale its presence to more than 500 kitchens in 15 cities besides hiring fresh talents, the company said in a press statement. Currently, it operates eight brands out of its 150 kitchens across five cities in India including Mumbai, Bengaluru and NCR.

Founded by Amit Raj and Anshul Gupta, EatClub Brands has its own fleet of delivery staff to fulfil orders originating from its native app. It also sells via third-party apps such as Zomato and Swiggy. The company claims to be one of the first D2C brands to cross the Rs 100 crore revenue mark. 

According to EatClub Brands, its flagship brand MOJO Pizza, has become the largest home-grown pizza delivery brand clocking over 150 crore in revenue.

While the company is yet to file its annual financial report for FY21, it recorded a 15% surge in its revenue from operations to Rs 152.69 crore in FY20 from Rs 133 crore in the previous fiscal. During FY20, the company’s total expenses also jumped by 21% to Rs 189.43 crore and its losses soared to Rs. 35.43 crore.

EatClub directly competes with Rebel Foods, FreshMenu and several independent cloud kitchen brands. While FreshMenu has not been able to raise a new round, Rebel Foods recently turned unicorn following a $175 million round.