Restaurant platform Petpooja, operated by Prayosha Food Services Pvt. Ltd, raised $4.5 million (around Rs 34 crore) in a funding round led by Aroa Ventures. Other investors who participated in the round include GVFL, Udaan, and Dr Mayur Desai, among others.
The company plans to utilise the funds to bring over 1.5 lakh outlets over the next two years on their platform, expand its reach in the Middle East and Africa, and leverage its network to enable its restaurants to come together for bulk purchases of ingredients and equipment.
Founded in 2011, by Apurv Patel and Parthiv Patel, the company started offering its simple billing point-of-sale solution in 2014. The company claims that it powers large food chains such as JumboKing, Hocco, La Pino’z, Thalappakatti, Giani’s, Apsara Ice Creams, among others.
Udaan has a network of over 25,000 sellers connecting to more than three million users in 900 cities in India. “The pandemic has been a watershed moment for the food service industry as on the one hand consumers demanded digital touchpoints while on the other hand margins were under severe stress", said Amod Malviya, co-founder, Udaan.
Given the current industry outlook and the evolution, large-scale technology adoption is imperative to increase the efficiency of operations, control pilferage, manage online channels and keep costs under control, Malviya added.
Recently, Udaan received shareholders' approval to raise up to Rs 2,000 crore (about $270 million) in debt financing through the issuance of non-convertible debentures.
Earlier this month, Aroa Ventures, an investment initiative of Ritesh Agarwal's family office, invested $4 million (Rs 30 crore) on eEyewear brand ClearDekho in a pre-Series A funding.
In 2020, GVFL Ltd (formerly Gujarat Venture Finance Ltd) invested $800,000 (about Rs 6 crore) on Clientjoy in a pre-Series A round. Clientjoy is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm operated by Pivoting Softwares Pvt Ltd.
Petpooja’s software works across multiple formats such as dine-in, QSR, casual-dine, food-courts, cloud-kitchens, desserts shops, bars, and bakeries.