Kerala-based agritech startup Growcoms on Wednesday said it has raised pre-series A funding of $1 million (around Rs 7.8 crore), led by pure-play internet company Info Edge.
Founded in 2021 by George Kurian Kannanthanam, Bibin Mathews and Narendranath P, the vision of Growcoms is to improve efficiencies across the complex nodes in the highly fragmented spices value chain.
The company plans to use the fresh funds to scale up its tech platform and expand its market reach. It also plans to further strengthen traceability and transparency of the spices value chain.
“The company focuses on creating awareness among farmers about enhancing the quality of produce and thus getting the right value for their produce. Growcoms is striving to become a one-stop-shop of Indian spices and its value-added products, thereby popularizing them globally by leveraging technology,” said Kannanthanam, founder and chief executive officer, Growcoms.
“We believe the Growcoms founding team is positioned to address the requirements of domestic as well as international spice and oleoresin buyers. They can solve fragmentation in the spice supply chain through aggregation of spare capacity, improve market linkages for the unorganized market and introduce product traceability for international trade,” said Chinmaya Sharma, partner at Info Edge Ventures.
Tipping Mr Pink Pvt. Ltd, which owns burger chain Burger Singh, on Wednesday said it has secured Rs 30 crore (around $4 million) as a part of its Series A funding round led by Negen Capital, with participation from LetsVenture, Mumbai Angels, Old World Hospitality and music artist, Jasleen Royal.
The round also saw participation from existing investors RB Investments, Rukam Capital, KCT Family Office and VM Salgaocar family office (Goa).
The company plans to deploy the fresh proceeds for business expansion and support existing franchise owners.
“Our ideology has always been to provide sustainable growth to our investors. Our robust business model has sailed steadfast through two unprecedented global events - the pandemic and inflation. With this round, both current and new investors have once again supported our mantra,” said Kabir Jeet Singh, CEO and founder of Burger Singh.
Burger Singh launched its first outlet in 2014 in Gurugram and currently it has over 80 outlets across Delhi NCR, Lucknow, Jaipur, Dehradun, Jammu, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Jhansi, Chandigarh, Amritsar and others with another 12 franchises under fit-outs across the country.
“The QSR space in India is an exciting proposition right now due to the Indian consumption landscape moving to the next stage of evolution. Powered by 360 million millennials, dramatically improved unit level economics have made the industry very attractive for investors like us who want to invest in high growth, predictable and profitable startups,” said Neil Bahal, founder and CEO at Negen Capital.
