Homegrown venture debt firm Stride Ventures has invested Rs 30 crore in a funding round in meat and seafood-ordering platform TenderCuts, the venture debt firm said in a statement on Tuesday.
TenderCuts, operated by GFM Retail Pvt Ltd, will use the funds for its growth and is eyeing to expand its footprint into as many as eight cities across the country by early 2022, Stride Ventures said.
Launched in 2015, TenderCuts offers ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook products such as sausages, kebabs, shawarmas, pickles among others, besides enabling users to order meat and seafood online, including eggs. The company claims to have presence in Chennai Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, and also claims to have 50 omni-channel stores across these cities.
“Our learnings in the South will help us expand swiftly across other cities in India. We already are at 50 stores and will be expanding to eight cities in 2022. We are happy to partner with Stride as both companies are aligned to the future of consumer tech and organised retail,” said Nishanth Chandran, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, TenderCuts.
The company had raised Rs 110 crore ($15 million) in a round led by homegrown private equity firm Paragon Partners, earlier this year.
Meanwhile, for Stride Ventures, TenderCuts investment marks its 43rd investment across the two debt funds it has so far--Stride Venture India Debt Fund I and Stride Venture India Debt Fund II.
“TenderCuts has plans for expanding its reach pan-India. This is a highly fragmented market where customer experience is inconsistent. TenderCuts’ omni-channel distribution strategy enables it to maintain low turnaround and deliver high quality, freshly cut meat,” said Apoorva Sharma, Partner, Stride Ventures.
Stride Ventures had recently invested in Neeman's Pvt. Ltd, an eco-friendly footwear brand. The venture debt firm has also invested in at least three healthtech companies since April, in a bid to tap the rising demand for helathcare post the second wave of Covid-19. In October, Ishpreet Gandhi, Founder and Managing Partner of Stride Ventures had told VCCircle that Stride Ventures will earmark at least a fourth of its second fund for investing in the healthcare space. According to VCCEdge, the data and research platform of VCCircle, the second debt fund of Stride Ventures has a corpus of $137 million.