Homegrown meat brand Licious, on Monday launched its direct-to-consumer, plant-based meat brand, UnCrave, in-line with the company’s plans of diversifying it portfolio, the startup said.
Uncrave’s plant-based proteins, consisting vegetarian chicken and mutton seekh kebabs, will be initially rolled out in all major metro cities in India. These products will be available for ordering through Licious’ mobile application, web, offline stores, and channel partners.
The plant-based range will be priced Rs 349 onwards, and will be available in a “chick~n & mutt~n” variant in packs of 4. Licious, managed by Delightful Gourmet Pvt. Ltd, claims the cook-time for the products is approximately 8 minutes, with a shelf life of 12-14 days.
“We have invested in over 20 months of R&D, in-house, to develop a range of products that closely resembles the taste and texture of meat in a never-before experienced way,” Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, Licious’ co-founders said, adding that the plant-based meat brand focuses on quality standards as well as the nutritional profile of its products.
Licious claims to be the only homegrown company to offer both animal and alternative protein under one brand. “Our vegetarian chick~n & mutt~n seekhs cook like meat and can address the everyday protein needs - an extremely pertinent need in a protein deficient country like India,” the meat startup’s business head - alternative protein, Simeran Bhasin said.
Licious, in April, made its first strategic investment of about $1 million in fresh pet food startup Pawfectly Made, wherein the brand would function as a separate entity and production processes.
The company also raised $150 million in March, in an extended Series F funding round led by Singapore’s Amansa Capital, and about $52 million in October 2021, from IIFL Asset Management Ltd’s private equity fund at a billion-dollar valuation.
The unicorn was founded by Hanjura and Gupta in 2015 and claims to have witnessed a 300% growth in six years. Licious operates in 28 Indian cities including Bangalore, Hyderabad, NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune Chennai, Coimbatore, Jaipur, among others.
It claims to serve over 2 million orders every month, and employs about 6000, across different functions.