Lo! Foods, which offers low-carb food products for Indian consumers, said it has raised Rs 3.5 crore ($500,000) from a clutch of angel investors.
The investors in this round include Rashmi Daga (founder, FreshMenu), Raveen Sastry (co-founder, Myntra) and Mitesh Shah (finance chief, BookMyShow), Lo! Foods said in the statement.
The Bengaluru-based startup, owned by Bajo Foods Pvt. Ltd, aims to reduce with its food products the incidence of diabetes and cardiac diseases in India.
“Top FMCG and financial executives coming on board to invest and mentor the company is another strong validation of the prospects we have as an organisation. We believe we are now ready to further scale up our operations to the next level,” said Sudarshan Gangrade, founder of the startup, adding that the funding will be mainly used to ramp up online presence.
The firm was started in early 2019 by Gangrade, a former Ola senior executive. An alumnus of IIM-Bangalore, Gangrade had earlier launched several ventures such as Road MApp and LeanScience.
Lo! Foods offers a range of products that includes low-carb atta, biscuits, snacks, namkeen and chocolates. The products are available on platforms like FreshMenu, Amazon, Flipkart and Bigbasket.
Lo! Foods has also brought on board several professionals from the FMGC space in India. Some of them are PC Musthafa, co-founder of iD Fresh Food, and Anuradha Narasimhan, former marketing chief of Britannia.
Deals in the space
A number of firms in the broader packaged food space have raised funding in recent months.
Dutch social impact fund Oikocredit and venture capital firm 021 Capital, which is backed by Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, invested in packaged food startup Y-Cook in May last year.
VCCircle had reported in May 2018 that US-based private equity firm General Atlantic LLC had inked a deal to pick up a majority stake in Mumbai-based packaged food products manufacturer Capital Foods Pvt. Ltd, the maker of Ching’s Secret sauce and instant noodles.
In March last year, venture debt firm Alteria Capital Advisors invested in ready-to-cook food startup Fingerlix, owned by Maverix Platforms Pvt. Ltd.
In January, Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia invested Rs 152 crore ($23 million) in Southern Health Foods, which markets its products under the brand Manna Foods.