Curefoods Pvt Ltd, a cloud kitchen startup floated by Cure.fit Co-Founder Ankit Nagori, on Tuesday said it has acquired five direct-to-consumer (D2C) food brands, in an effort to become one of the largest players in the segment.
The brands it had bought include Mumbai-based Juno’s Pizza, Cupcake Noggins, Bengaluru-based cupcake brand, Iceberg, organic ice cream brand, Delhi-based Nomad Pizzas and Jaipur-based cloud kitchen startup White Kitchens.
Curefoods claims to have a total of more than 20 brands in its portfolio and is looking to house another five brands by mid-2022. The company also looks expansion across 20 cities with 200 locations in the current year.
Under Curefoods’ purview, these brands will be benefitted with greater expansion - within their base city or to newer cities - and capital infusion as and when required to grow business.
Curefoods will also be supporting them with branding and marketing strategies that will help in boosting the revenue.
“India’s online food delivery marketing is estimated to touch $8 billion this year and we are eager to play a huge role in shaping this segment. To cater to multiple eating occasions, cuisines, flavour profiles and regional nuances, we are bringing on a plethora of such companies - each a strong contender in its space with great products to offer,” said Nagori.
In October, Curefoods bought out seven brands, just after it bagged its Series A funding round.
The startup was already said to have signed 15 more letters of intent (LOIs), the company had announced back then. It typically follows a 21-day period of end-to-end closure while on-boarding such brands.
Curefoods joins a growing list of ventures which have come up with a view to acquiring D2C brands or third-party sellers on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon to create a large portfolio of businesses.
Some of them have already raised their large institutional cheques such as Flipkart-backed GOAT Brand Labs; Mensa Brands, floated by former Myntra and Medlife CEO Ananth Narayan; and SoftBank-backed FirstCry’s GlobalBees. GlobalBees and Mensa also have entered unicorns club recently.
