Online meat mkt hotting up now
E-retailers engaged in meat, sea food space expanding operations; Post-fund raising, valuation estimates put Licious at $700mn
image for illustrative purpose
THE battle for dominance among eretailers operating in the online delivery of fish and meat products hots up as all prominent players build up war chest to drive the next phase of growth.
The recent one to join the fray in the fund-raising space is Licious, which is one of the leading brands operating in direct-to-consumer (D2C) fresh meat and seafood segment.
The startup has raised $192 million as part of its series F round, led by the Singapore government's investment company Temasek, and Multiples Private Equity.
Licious is present in present in cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi-NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Vizag, Kochi, Vijayawada and Jaipur and delivers around 1 million orders each month across all its segments.
Though the valuation of the company post- round of fund raising is not in public domain, sources peg it somewhere around $650 million- $700 million.
Earlier, another prominent player 'FreshToHome' had raised $121 million in a series C financing round last year from clutch of investors led by Investment Corporation of Dubai, Investcorp, Ascent Capital, the US government's development finance institution (DFC) and the Allana Group.
In a recent interview with Bizz Buzz, FreshToHome's cofounder & CEO Shan Kadavil has said that the company is expanding into new categories and cities as part of its future growth.
"We are currently doing around 2 million orders per month. As far as volumeis concerned, we are doing close to 50 tonnes per day right now," Kadavil has said.
According to the company, it has aggressive expansion plans. "Our last expansion was in Hyderabad. Kolkata is the next city, we are looking at. Right now, we are present in 10 cities and we are looking to expand it to 22 by end of this year," said Kadavil.
Commenting on the fund raising activities of e-tailers operating on the fish and meat delivery space, experts said that fund houses are more choosy about investing on those sectors which are growing or have prospects to grow notwithstanding the disruptions caused by pandemic.
"Due to the pandemic, there is high uncertainty in most other sectors. Investors are looking for sectors where the risk is lower and demand will continue to exist even during a pandemic like situation. Also, the current fund raising (by these players) is also a function of narrower options available for funding," said Vivek Durai, founder of business intelligence platform paper.vc. He also said that India will see more niche players in the ecommerce segments catering to specific needs of consumers. "As we have seen, consolidation in Indian ecommerce space has begun. So, we may see more niche players going ahead," Durai added.
The meat and fish buying in India largely falls under the informal market with small offline retailers dominating the space. However, entry of players like 'Licious' and 'FreshToHome' are slowly changing the consumer behaviour with a fraction of transactions migrating online. With the pandemic, this space has gained traction with many experts forecasting solid demand growth going ahead.
