India’s Licious raises $150m at $1.6bn valuation
India’s Licious, a direct-to-consumer fresh meat and seafood delivery company, has raised a USD 150m round led by Amansa Capital at a valuation of USD 1.6bn.
Kotak Private Equity and Axis Asset Management also took part. They were joined by existing investors Temasek Holdings, Multiples Alternate Asset Management, IIFL Asset Management, Brunei Investment Agency, 3one4 Capital, and Vertex Ventures.
It comes within six months of a USD 52m Series G round led by IIFL at a valuation of USD 1bn with support from Avendus Capital, which acted as financial advisor on the latest transaction. Temasek and Multiples led a USD 192m Series F in July last year.
Total funding since the company’s inception in 2015 is about USD 480m. Previous backers also include Bertelsmann India Investments, Sistema Asia Fund, UCLA Investment Company, Mayfield India, and Neoplux Capital.
Licious is positioned as India’s largest tech-first, fresh animal protein brand and the first unicorn of its kind. It claims to have established India’s first farm-to-fork model with a digital-enabled supply chain, introducing global standards of meats and seafood for the local market.
The company sources products directly from farmers and distributes them to end-consumers via platforms such as BigBasket and Amazon on a same-day basis. It is said to have grown 300% since launch, facilitating around 2m orders a month with more than 90% repeat consumption across markets.
Hygiene is the main problem solver in this business model. Neighbourhood meat shops and butchers have a bad reputation for cleanliness in India, and professionally run supermarkets are known for being inconvenient and poorly stocked. In order to sell products via Amazon, Licious had to become the first Indian meat and seafood company to win FSSC 22000 certification, one of the highest global food safety standards.
“We are committed to building a sustainable, responsible business that will reimagine the animal protein category in India through an optimal mix of global influence and product innovation best suited for India,” Licious founders Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura, said in a statement.
“Through it all, we pledge to not lose sight of our mission statement that we adopted on day one - if we can’t feed it to our families, we won’t sell it to our consumers.”
Licious has ambitions to expand overseas. This has already been achieved by FreshToHome, which now generates significant revenue in the United Arab Emirates. The company claims to be the largest fully integrated online brand in fresh fish and meat e-commerce globally. It closed a $121 million Series C last year.
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