The company will use the funding for geographical expansion, enter new product categories and deepening its existing product portfolio.
ET
was the first to report Venturi and Temasek’s plans to invest in the company on February 7.
The entirely primary funding round saw participation from SWC Global and Trifecta Capital. Existing investors—IIFL Asset Management, Elevation Capital, Orios Venture Partners and Matrix Partners—also participated in this round. Around 30% of the funding came from existing investors.
This transaction takes the company’s total funding to $147 million.
“We are reaching a $120 million annualised revenue run rate,” Chakradhar Gade, co-founder and CEO at Country Delight, told ET. “We will continue to grow at 100% y-o-y over the next 12-24 months.”
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The company is looking to broaden its product base. “We want to be complete with natural products such as grains, pulses, spices, oils, pickles and jams and basic snacking items,” Gade said.
“We will also be introducing more value-added items in the milk products category,” he added.
On the increasing competition in the direct-to-home grocery and home essential segment, he said, “We take ownership of the quality of the products that we sell, which is what differentiates us”.
Founded in 2013 by Gade and Nitin Kaushal, Country Delight delivers dairy, fruits and vegetables to the doorstep of consumers. The company’s business model ensures fresh farm-to-home deliveries within 24-36 hours from sourcing, facilitated by a fully integrated supply chain model.
In the last three years, Country Delight has grown 10x in scale and has served over three million customers across 15 cities in India. According to Gade, the company has strong unit economics and is contribution margin positive.
It competes with other on-demand delivery services providers such as Blinkit (formerly Grofers), Fraazo, BigBasket, Swiggy Instamart, Dunzo and Zepto.
According to the company, India’s fresh food and staples market is expected to cross $50 billion by 2025. Today, over 60% of the fresh foods market is unorganised with limited cold storage capabilities, a fragmented logistics chain and inadequate visibility of product quality across the supply chain.
“Country Delight is solving a very real problem at scale,” said Rishika Chandan, executive managing director at Venturi Partners. “Quality consciousness in India is on the rise as are customer expectations of transparency and clean products. The brand’s focus on offering farm-to-doorstep daily pantry essentials that are fresh and of highest quality has resulted in immensely positive customer feedback and strong loyalty.”
Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Country Delight on this transaction.
The adoption of online groceries has accelerated since the beginning of the pandemic and platforms are trying to woo users by promising to deliver them in 10 minutes.
BigBasket had a 37% share in e-grocery, followed by Amazon (15%), Blinkit (13%), Flipkart (11%) and Reliance’s JioMart (4%) in financial year 2021, according to data from PGA Labs, the market intelligence unit of Praxis Global Alliance.
