Helion, Footprint invest $6m in restaurant chain Mast Kalandar

Together with Footprint Ventures, Helion will commit $6 million to the ethnic Indian food chain, bringing the total amount of equity capital raised to $11 million. Footprint invested in the Series A round in 2008, while both firms - and Salarpuria Group - participated in the Series B two years later.

According to VC Circle, this new investment will be used to help the company scale up to 100 outlets across eight Indian cities in the next 18 months. Established in 2008, Mast Kalandar currently has 40 outlets in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune. It serves 200,000 customers every month.

"The QSR space in India faces challenges such as long gestation periods, rising real estate costs and complexity of logistics and back-end operations." said Kanwaljit Singh, senior managing director at Helion. "Moreover, Indian food, unlike certain western cuisines, does not lend itself readily to the assembly-line production model. In this case, Mast Kalandar has been exceptional in getting the delivery model right and scaling to 40 outlets."

The QSR space in India has seen several investments this year, the most recent being Indian Angel Network's investment in Mexican quick service restaurant Poncho in Mumbai in September for an undisclosed amount.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Consumer
• Expansion
• Venture
• India
• Helion Ventures