Rebel Foods Pvt Ltd, which operates restaurant brands including Faasos and Oven Story, has invested more money in home chef-focussed FoodyBuddy, according to a report.
Mumbai-based Rebel Foods has bet around Rs 5 crore (approximately $679,788 at current exchange rates) in FoodyBuddy, Entrackr reported, citing regulatory filings.
This is the second investment by Rebel Foods in the company, with the firm having committed around Rs 3 crore in April, per the report. The fresh infusion takes the stake it holds in the startup to 26%, valuing it at around Rs 31 crore.
The company was set up in 2015 by Akil Sethuraman, Anup Gopinath and Rachna Rao. Following this latest investment, Sethuraman holds a 15.28% stake, while Gopinath and Rao hold 11.95% each, per the report.
VCCircle has reached out to FoodyBuddy and Rebel Foods on the details of this investment and will update this report accordingly.
Sethuraman holds a master’s degree in bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to starting up, he led business development at enterprise customer support platform Konotor, which was acquired by Freshworks in 2015.
Gopinath and Rao, alumni of IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM-Bengaluru, respectively, had previously worked at social games company Zynga before founding FoodyBuddy.
According to its website, FoodyBuddy connects home chefs with nearby consumers. Its platform allows cooks flexibility with the quantity and price of each dish, as well as managing orders and customers. It also lets home chefs maintain a social profile.
In October 2018, VCCircle exclusively reported that the company had raised Rs 6 crore (around $960,000 then) in funding from Prime Venture Partners. According to VCCEdge, the data research arm of Mosaic Digital, FoodyBuddy had raised Rs 26 lakh from angel investors Vinod Kumar, Usha Badrinath and Anshumani Rudra.
Rebel Foods
The company, set up in 2004 by INSEAD alumni Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee, began life as a quick-service restaurant chain before pivoting to an online kitchen model. Earlier known as Faasos Food Services Pvt. Ltd, it rebranded itself to Rebel Foods in 2018.
In April this year, the company raised nearly $50 million (around Rs 382 crore) in a fresh funding round from US-based hedge and investment fund Coatue Management.
That infusion came a little over eight months after the company raised $125 million (about Rs 868 crore) from Goldman Sachs, Indonesia’s Go-Jek and Coatue. According to reports at the time, Sequoia Capital-backed Rebel Foods was valued at around $525 million.
In September last year, ride-hailing firm Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick reportedly purchased a small stake in Rebel Foods as part of the above-mentioned funding round. Other backers of the firm include Innoven Capital, RB Investments, RTP Global Advisors and Irving Investors, according to VCCEdge.