Meat brand Licious, operated by Delightful Gourmet Pvt Ltd, on Wednesday said it has invested $1 million (around Rs 7.6 crore) in fresh pet food startup Pawfectly Made.
This is Licious’ first strategic investment in a startup.
The meat brand sees a strong synergy with Pawfectly Made when it comes to offering high-quality fresh products and elevated meaty experience to customers, said a company statement.
Pawfectly Made was launched by Arpita Ganesh in 2020. She had earlier founded the lingerie brand Buttercap, which was later acquired by Amazon.
Post this deal, Pawfectly will function as a separate entity with its production processes and supply chain, the statement said.
“Pawfectly Made is a good strategic fit for us given the shared vision and synergies across the value chain. The investment will give us access to a unique consumer play and a product portfolio that will complement our existing infrastructure,” said Nichelle Kamat, VP Category, Licious.
In March this year, Licious raised $150 million (Rs 1,146 crore) in an extended Series F round of funding led by Singapore-based Amansa Capital.
In October 2021, the company raised $52 million from IIFL Asset Management Ltd’s private equity fund at a billion-dollar valuation, making it one of the over 40 startups to enter the unicorn club in 2021.
Prior to this, Licious raised $192 million in July 2021 at a valuation of around $650 million. That round was led by Temasek Holdings and Multiples Alternate Asset Management.
Its competitor Fresh-to-Home was also in talks to raise capital at a unicorn valuation, VCCircle reported in November.
Licious was founded by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta in 2015. Since its launch, it claims to have witnessed a 300% growth and has served over three million packs of world-class meat products to consumers across Bangalore, Hyderabad, NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Kochi, Puducherry, Vizag, Vijayawada and Kolkata.
Licious serves over one million orders every month with over 90% repeat consumption across markets, according to its website.
The company reported a net loss of Rs 369.8 crore in the fiscal year 2020-2021 against Rs 146.3 crore in the previous financial year. However, it reported over a 3x jump in total income at Rs 435 crore in FY21, compared to Rs 138 crore in FY20.