India’s fresh meat ecommerce start-up firm Freshtohome has secured INR760m ($11m) in a funding round that was led by UAE-based CE Ventures.
Companies including Das Capital, Kortschak Investments and TTCER Partners, as well as Asia and Silicon Valley investors participated in the Series A funding round.
CE-Ventures is a corporate venture capital arm of Crescent Enterprises, which focuses on making strategic investments in early-to-late stage technology-enabled businesses globally.
Based in Bengaluru, India, Freshtohome works directly with fishermen and farmers, thereby eliminating the need for a middleman.
FreshToHome founder and CEO Shan Kadavil was quoted by Economic Times as saying: “We are disrupting the food supply chain in India with our patent pending commodities exchange technology, offering food that is free of added chemicals to end consumers and a fair price to the producers.
“Most of our capital has gone into re-inventing the food supply chain. We currently sell meat and fish sourced from over 1,500 fishermen and farmers on our platform, using our state-of-the-art technology backed with cold chain infrastructure, a fleet of dedicated refrigerated trucks, using the hub and spoke distribution model from four large processing factories to ensure traceability and food safety.”
The funding will be used by the company to further expand its footprint in India and strengthen its supply chain.
In addition to Bengaluru, Freshtohome operates in the National Capital Region, Kerala, and Chennai. It is planning to enter cities such as Mumbai and Pune.
Freshtohome intends to expand its offering portfolio with the addition of vegetables and fruits and has reportedly initiated a pilot in Bengaluru.
