Indian startup FreshToHome, which sells fresh fish and meat to consumers in the South Asian market and the Middle East region, has courted a new backer: Amazon.
Amazon, through its India-focused Smbhav Venture Fund, led a $104 million Series D financing round at the Bangalore-based startup, the two said Tuesday. The new round for the startup, which also counts the US government’s development arm among its backers, also saw participation from the Dubai government and Iron Pillar.
This is the largest check the $250 million Smbhav Venture Fund has issued to date. The new round brings FreshToHome’s all-time raise to more than $250 million.
Started in 2015, freshhome it is one of the biggest players fighting for a slice of the $100 billion Indian fish and meat market. Most of the Indians are not vegetarians, but the current market works on an old system.
FreshToHome is bringing efficiencies to the market by optimizing meat and fish sourcing infrastructure and improving product quality and delivery time through the use of its own rigorous processing plants and extensive supply chain network.
A customer who orders fish from Delhi to Dubai on a Monday receives his item, which was purchased on Monday morning, delivered on Tuesday, for example.
But for FreshToHome and a handful of other startups vying for the same $100 billion Indian meat market, one of the biggest challenges is establishing trust with customers. The wet market dominates the lion’s share of all meat and fish sales in India, offering customers the chance to inspect each item before pulling out their wallets.
Shan Kadavilco-founder and CEO of FreshToHome, told TechCrunch in an interview that it took the startup about seven years to establish the competitive moat it has today.
“My co-founder is a fish exporter. He has operated in this space for over 30 years. It’s a very difficult grassroots change that you have to enact. This business is not just about technology, but also about people and relationships,” said Kadavil, who before founding FreshToHome managed support for Support and India operations for gaming company Zynga.
One of those trust factors is convincing male and female fishermen and poultry farmers to part with cash. The second competitive moat is the unitary economy. Kadavil said the startup is operationally profitable and “proficorn.” (Proficorn, obviously, is the culmination of Soonicorn and profitability. Kadavil declined to disclose the startup’s valuation in the current round.
FreshToHome today serves more than 4,000 fishermen and farmers and millions of customers in more than 160 cities in India and the United Arab Emirates and offers more than 2,000 certified fresh and chemical-free products. The startup has expanded its presence by more than 100% in the last year, he said.
FreshToHome, which currently sells the vast majority of its products online, including through Amazon, is also increasingly expanding its physical presence. The startup operates a dozen brick-and-mortar stores, but these are not new properties it is leasing, but a partial refurbishment of its existing warehouses and floors, Kadavil said, adding that the startup will open more such stores in the coming months as which doubles. an omnichannel bet.
Amazon has expanded into grocery and fresh produce categories in India in recent years as it improves its logistics infrastructure in the South Asian market. But in recent months, the US giant has withdrawn from many lines of business in the country due to global market conditions.
An investment in FreshToHome could be Amazon’s way of ceding the meat and fish market to the startup for the time being. Kadavil insisted that Amazon’s investment is purely financial in nature and not strategic per se.
“Our vision with the $250 million Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund is to empower the next generation of innovative, technology-driven companies led by visionary founders,” an Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund spokesperson said in a statement.
“We are impressed with the FreshToHome management team led by Shan Kadavil and they have done a quality job creating a robust technology enabled supply chain and scalable backwards integrated capabilities to serve both customers and farmers and fishermen. We are excited to partner with FreshToHome for the next phase of their growth.”
