Licious, a fresh meat and sea food startup, announced it has raised $150 million from investors led by Singapore-based Amansa Capital. Kotak PE and Axis Growth Avenues AIF-I are also among the backers in the Series F2 round, a senior company official said.
“The company will use the funding to fuel its inorganic growth ambitions, expand globally and add more tier II and tier III cities in India to its network,” Vivek Gupta, co-founder and CEO, Licious, said.
This funding round comes six months after the company raised $52 million led by IIFL’s Late Stage Tech Fund and Avendus, taking the company to the Unicorn club with a post-money valuation of $1.05 billion. In July 2021, it had raised $192 million in its Series F funding Round, led by Temasek and Multiples Alternatives.
“Around 30% of the new capital has come from our existing investors. This is largely a primary round,” Gupta said.
Post this deal, the founders continue to hold the largest stake in the company with the rest being held by investors such as Temasek. Founded in 2015 by Gupta and Abhay Hanjura, Licious currently serves 17 Indian cities. These include Bangalore, Hyderabad, NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Kochi, Puducherry, Vizag, Vijayawada and Kolkata. It serves over two million orders every-month with more than 90% repeat consumption across markets.
The D2C market in India is at an inflection point and is expected to attain a size of more than $100 billion by 2025. The pandemic has played a major role in accelerating growth for the sector, the company said.
“Our current annualised revenue run rate stands at Rs 1,000 crore. It is expected to double over the next 12 months,” Gupta said. “The market is large enough. It is just how best you can execute and grow,” he added.
“That would also take us closer to our goal of an initial public offering or IPO in two years,” he added.
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