India-based Startup Licious Is Expanding To Other Markets After Raising $192m

In a Series F round led by Singapore’s investment firm Temasek and Multiples Private Equity, Licious – a Bangalore based startup that sells seafood and fresh meat online, raised $192 million and is looking to expand beyond the South Asian borders.

Founded in 2015, the company operates on a farm-to-fork model, owns the entire back-end supply and cold chain, and operates across cities in India. Techcrunch reported that the recent funding round brings the total amount raised from funding rounds to a little over $285 million dollars at a valuation of over $650, and this information was according to an unnamed person who knew about these details.

The recent funding round was led by Singapore’s investment firm Temasek and Multiples Private Equity, and existing investors like Vertex Ventures, Vertex Growth Fund, Bertelsmann India Investments, and 3one Capital also participated in the round.

Licious runs an online service where it sells meat and seafood to numerous cities in India. It has a supply chain network across these cities which allows it to be able to procure meat and seafood, ensure that they are kept fresh at all times and delivered within a short period after orders have been placed.

The startup stated that it has seen enviable growth in its business as people seem to be trying to improve their immunity by consuming more protein content. The startup failed to disclose details about its growth but did say that it has witnessed a 500 percent growth in the last year and made deliveries to over 2 million different consumers.

A joint statement by co-founders – Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura on Friday, they said that “this is just the beginning in our pursuit of building an exemplary and iconic tech-led D2C (Direct to Customer) brand”.

According to the Sridhar Sankararama; MD of Multiples Private Equity, Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura have “revolutionized the purchase of poultry, seafood and meatin the country delighting customers with their promise of quality, freshness and timely delivery”.

Licious has plans of using the funds raised to explore new geographical territories within and outside India, as it only mentioned plans of expansion without identifying any new markets but throwing intimations that these markets could be location within and outside India. Licious also announced that the funds would be geared into widening its tech and supply chain networks.