Gourmet food startup iD Fresh Food raises Rs 35 crores from Helion Venture Partners

The South Indian ready-to-cook packaged food startup, iD Fresh Food, has raised Rs.35 crores funding from Helion Venture Partners. The startup is best known for creating idly and dosa batter in the ready-to-cook segment and retailing them across cities in the South and West India.

This is the first round of institutional fund raising by the company and capital will be used to introduce new product categories, accelerate geographic expansion and augment the team. Following the round, Rahul Chowdhri, Partner at Helion, will join the board of the company.

Founded in 2005 by IIM Bangalore alumnus, PC Musthafa and his associates, Shamsudeen TK, Abdul Nazer, Jafar TK and Noushad TA, iD has production units in six cities, including two plants in Bangalore and one each in Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Mangalore and Dubai.

“iD already sells Rs 7 crore worth of preservative- free food products each month in eight cities and with this round of funding, we are poised to see the next level of growth. It will aid our plans to introduce more products and expand to more cities, several of them outside India,” said Musthafa PC, CEO of iD Fresh Food (India) Pvt Ltd.

With a 600-member strong team and the first round of institutional funding, iD is poised to expand to 30 cities in the next five years and aims at doubling the outlet reach from the current 6000 in eight cities within the next few months. The brand is also available with online grocers like Bigbasket.

“Ready-to-cook is a very unique category in the F&B segment with products being essentially a tool to enable homemakers get the original taste by minimizing the backend pressure of everyday cooking. We have seen that there is great consumer appetite for authentic and nutritious Indian food in these times, and across customer segments. With our unique strengths in distribution and our backend technology, we have perfected the ‘zero-inventory’ model, making sure to reach daily supplies to retail stores based on demand; keeping products fresh and as good as home made,” added Musthafa.

A quick look at gourmet food segment in India

With growing appetite of Indians towards gourmet food, the retail space has been experiencing rapid expansion over the past five years. The gourmet food space is expected to grow manifolds over the next few years. At present, the size of the gourmet food market in India is estimated at Rs 6,500 crore, growing at a CAGR of 20% year on year. The market is set to cross Rs 13,700 crore by 2015 (source).