[Funding Alert] Cloud Kitchen Hoi Foods raises $2M in pre-Series A from a clutch of investors

Gurugram-based Hoi Foods, which operates several cloud kitchens, has raised $2 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by 1Crowd as a follow up round, which also saw participation from Sprout, Angelist, Samar Singla – Founder of Jugnu, Jaideep Mehta – CEO of VCCircle, Mukund Kulashekaran – SVP of Business at UrbanClap, and others.

ALSO READ

Deepinder Goyal is ordering food from this Delhi-based startup, and no it’s not Zomato

Hoi foods began in April 2017, when Indrajeet Roy (founder) along with Pawan Raj Kumar (Co-Founder and prime investor), came up with the cloud kitchen startup. Hoi Foods has come a long way since then, with more than 150 active cloud-kitchens serving 5,000+ meals in a day across Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru. Currently, the company has set in motion its plan to expand to Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, and diversify further in Bengaluru.

Cloud kitchen is a phenomenon in which a small food outlet, or group of food brands, share kitchen space under one roof. But there are no options for dine-in. You just can take away your food order or you get it delivered by ordering through apps like Swiggy or Zomato. So, in a broader sense, it is a delivery-only restaurant.  

Hoi Foods said in a statement that it will use the funds to enhance the existing network of Hoi’s cloud kitchens and catapult the company into the big league of the cloud kitchen ecosystem. Specifically, the company will focus on expanding its cloud kitchen network across India, enhance the tech platform, and further strengthen the supply chain.

"We are building a very strong play in the cloud kitchens ecosystem and have been able to put together a decently large network in a very short duration. We feel honoured and excited to receive the confidence of all investors. I am also very confident and motivated to build our organisation much bigger and better with this." said Pawan Raj Kumar, Co-founder of Hoi Foods.

Hoi Foods also runs a dark shop model called Hoi Stores for hyperlocal delivery through aggregators. Hoi Foods did a seed round funding back in 2018 and has grown seven times since then, it said in a statement.