Foodtech platform FairPlum on Monday announced $2 million (around Rs 15 crore) seed fundraise in a round led by Unicorn India Ventures, with participation from Vivek Sirohi, VP (R&D), Unilever, Amith Agarwal, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Agri-Bazaar and others.
The startup plans to use the fresh money for marketing and brand building, boost skills and organisation facilities.
FairPlum, launched in 2020 by former Unilever colleagues Rupesh Agarwal, Mayank Tandon and Mitesh Thakkar, claims to be working with the regional and heritage food brands of India and making them available to consumers by using food technology, food science and a supply chain network of cloud kitchens.
Its products are deployed through a phygital model of cloud kitchens, e-commerce, experience centres and channel sales platform. FairPlum plans to set up 100 Cloud Kitchen locations, a physical experience center and 5 – 10 kiosks within 2022 starting from Delhi NCR and Mumbai. So far, it has launched five brands Street Food Karvaan, Rollz Karvaan, Kebabi Karvaan , Unmarried Kitchen and Crafted, FairPlum said in a statement.
"The food industry is undergoing a significant revolution, especially with its creativity, innovation and cutting edge technologies. We saw a strong pipeline of user base and business traction addressing food nostalgia which is why we decided to invest in them further," said Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures.
"Our vision is to run a network of hundreds of cloud kitchens/ physical experience centers on which we will ride our most authentic and iconic foods and their brands from all over the world," said Agrawal.
FairPlum claims to operate across 17 locations and has confirmed 10 more cloud kitchen hubs and one physical experience centre in Thane along with Bikanervala which is expected to go live in the next two months.
