A clutch of angel investors including Vivek Sirohi, vice president, R&D, Unilever; Amith Agarwal, cofounder and CEO at Agri-Bazaar; and the Dinshaw family office also participated in the round.
Founded by former senior Unilever executives Rupesh Agrawal and Mitesh Thakkar, and Mayank Tandon, who has previously worked at Reliance Retail, Sanjeev Kapoor Restaurants, and Future Group Cloud Kitchens, FairPlum will run a mix of its own brands and third-party ones through a network of cloud kitchens. It currently operates in Mumbai and New Delhi and has about 30 kitchens, cofounder and CEO Agrawal told ET.
He said FairPlum differentiates itself by focussing on making authentic regional food available to consumers across the country by tweaking recipes to increase shelf life, hiring regional chefs to cook these dishes, taking franchise of pre-established brands such as Bikanervala, and leveraging its network of cloud kitchens for distribution.
FairPlum is entering the industry at a time when well-funded players such as Wow Momo Foods, Biryani By Kilo, Box8, Rebel Foods, and Curefoods are scaling their operations using a variety of models, including developing in-house brands, acquiring pre-established brands, and the franchise model.
It has launched five brands – Street Food Karvaan, Rollz Karvaan, Kebabi Karvaan, Unmarried Kitchen and Crafted (which it acquired). It plans on setting up cloud kitchens in 100 locations, a physical experience centre, and five to 10 kiosks this year, starting with Delhi NCR and Mumbai.
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The company will use 50% of the fresh funds to create brand awareness and the remaining to hire talent and for product development.
Anil Joshi, managing partner, Unicorn India Ventures, said in a statement, “FairPlum leverages technology to enhance efficiency and preserve the taste of the food which will be delivered in under an hour.”
