“COVID-19 transformed the fish and meat purchasing behaviour of consumers dramatically. Due to safety concerns, consumers made the habit-forming shift to e-commerce and we saw online demand for our products going up many folds this year thanks to safety guarantee of “100% Fresh and 0% Chemicals”. FreshToHome stands by the brand’s assurance and creates enormous social and economic impact by enabling sellers to directly source from the fishermen and farmers with its patent-pending AI-powered supply chain technology and aided by a state-of-the-art cold chain. We are just beginning to scratch the surface of a very large market and the current capital raise will help us realize our full potential through rapid expansion in India and the Middle East” said Shan Kadavil, Co-Founder and CEO of FreshToHome.

As estimated by Euromonitor International, the consumer market size of fish and meat segment in India in 2019 was $94B. FreshToHome is the world’s largest fully integrated online brand in fresh fish and meat e-commerce, with approximately 1.5 Million (15 Lakh) B2C orders per month and $85M (~INR 600 Crore) annualized sales run rate on the platform. FreshToHome enables its marketplace sellers to source and sell high-quality meat and fish directly from livestock farmers and fishermen in most major Indian cities (Mumbai, Delhi/NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Kerala and Tamil Nadu) and in the UAE.

“We are pleased to partner with FreshToHome and to support the vision of management and the growth of the company. FreshToHome is a leader in leveraging AI-based technology and business innovation to bring a superior value proposition to customers and suppliers in a large and important market. At ICD, we seek to partner with companies like FreshToHome that are able to break new ground for the greater good while also enjoying a large shareholder value creation opportunity. This successful fundraising is a strong recognition of the company’s achievements and significant potential.” said Khalifa Al Daboos, Deputy CEO of Investment Corporation of Dubai. 

Shan Kadavil and other co-founders of FreshToHome have a Silicon Valley entrepreneurship background, having been part of leadership teams of companies such as Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA).  Some of the early backers of FreshToHome include Mark Pincus – Zynga founder, David Krane – CEO of Google Ventures, Pete Briger – Chairman of Fortress, Abdul Aziz Al-Ghurair – Chairman of Mashreq Bank, Rajan Anandan of Sequoia and other renowned investors.

“DFC’s first equity deal with FreshToHome demonstrates the power of our new equity tool to drive development and advance U.S. foreign policy,” said US Government’s DFC CEO Adam Boehler. “This project will support economic growth and strengthen agricultural supply chains in a key U.S. partner.”

Support from its existing large Middle East-based investors such as CE-Ventures – the corporate venture capital platform of Crescent Enterprises, significantly helped in aiding its expansion in the UAE, where it is already one of the top 5 e-grocers. FreshToHome is also planning to expand to other key GCC markets such as Saudi Arabia.

Gaurav Sharma, Head of Private Equity at Investcorp Indiaadded“At Investcorp, we look at companies who redefine the category with proven top-line and bottom-line impact. We believe that FreshToHome fits this bill perfectly and is poised to achieve significant scale. We look forward to this partnership and supporting the company in realising its full potential.”

FreshToHome’s brand promise of “100% Fresh and 0% Chemicals” was a big enabler of its growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its platform was also instrumental in helping thousands of fishermen and farmers sell their produce during this crisis.

“‘FreshToHome’s unique collaborative approach with fishermen, farmers, and use of tech-based solutions on procurement give them an edge in emerging as the best reliable brand in the segment and a potential contender for the Unicorn Club,” said Raja Kumar, Founder & CEO, Ascent Capital.

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The post FreshToHome raises $121M – the largest ever Series C funding in India Consumer Tech appeared first on Startagist.

When Shan Kadavil met SeaToHome founder Mathew Joseph sometime last year, the online fresh fish retailer was on the deathbed. Shan, former India head of Zynga and a regular customer of SeaToHome, was determined to save the e-commerce business, when he came to know Mathew, a veteran fish exporter in Kerala, was planning to wind up the online platform that he painstakingly launched in 2012.

“It was really heartbreaking when I heard SeaToHome, the only fresh fish e-taler in India, was shutting down. This when I decided to help the company using my experience and expertise in consumer internet space. I contacted Mathew and asked if he is interested in working together to turn round the company. He readily agreed,” Shan narrates the story to Startagist.

Shan, a serial entrepreneur with immense experience in building startups, had a clear vision in his mind when he took the helm of the company. He realised that if he could make use of the business acumen of Mathew, he could easily rescue the company from further erosion.

“I’ve built many businesses, including consumer Internet companies, in the past, which helped me to understand the intricacies of e-commerce. I was incubating a couple of companies when SeaToHome was enrolled as an incubatee. We decided to put more time and double down our efforts on SeaToHome,” Shan explains.

The duo worked together for a few months, and rebranded SeaToHome as FreshTomHome to include other non-veg products such as poultry, duck, chicken etc. SeaToHome was floundering at just 4,000 customers then. After a few months of a hard-work, the business picked up pace and Shan and Mathew successfully scaled it to 85,000 customers across Cochin, Bangalore and Delhi.

“We also moved the headquarters from Cochin to Bangalore, which is now our key market in terms of the number of repeat customers. We also set up our own logistics and supply chain arms. Without burning much dollars on marketing, we kind of became a household name in the city. We have now bigger plans to expand to eight cities soon and ultimately to 20 cities,” Shan adds.

Why FreshToHome?

Recently, a few startups cropped up in the fresh meat and fish space such as Zappfresh and Licious. However, none of these new-age businesses could not match the prowess of  FreshToHome. “This is because we have far ahead of them in terms of everything. We have several USPs. One, we have our own processing unit in Bangalore. Two, we deliver fish to our customers within just 24 hours of being caught from the sea. Three, we have stringent quality check process in place that we make sure that fish products are totally chemical-free and meats are halal-certified. Four, we have our own supply chain,” says Shan.

Plus, FreshToHome is backed by some of the well-known names in the startup industry across the world. These angels put together multimillion dollars into the company a few moths ago. The names include Facebook’s early investor Mark Pincus, David Krane of Google Ventures, Google India chief Rajan Anandan, Pete Briger of Fortress Investment Group, former SoftBank executive Pavan Ongole, and Mashreq Bank’s Abdul Azeez Al-Ghurair.

FreshToHome is operating an industry estimated to be US$49 billion, which is slightly bigger than the size of the Hollywood industry (US$49 billion). “This is just for the fish industry. If we add meats and poultry products, the size will be much higher. This is why we are confident of becoming the largest fresh fish and meat e-commerce company in India,” Shan concludes

The post How FreshToHome scaled from just 4K customers to 85K in 15 months appeared first on Startagist.