Indian online fresh fish and meat retailer FreshToHome has raised US$11 million in funds led by Hong Kong-based CE Ventures.
FreshToHome, which currently operates in Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, Kerala, Chennai and Dubai, now intends to grow its business throughout all tier-I Indian cities. It will use the fresh capital to develop its supply chain by extending its proprietary sourcing technologies to farmers and fishermen nationwide.
“We are disrupting the food-supply chain in India with our patent pending commodities exchange technology offering food that is free of added chemicals to end consumers and a fair price to the producers,” said FreshToHome founder and CEO Shan Kadavil. “Most of our capital has gone into re-inventing the food supply chain.
We currently sell meat and fish sourced from more than 1500 fishermen and farmers on our platform, using our state-of-the-art technology backed with cold chain infrastructure, a fleet of dedicated refrigerated trucks, using the hub and spoke distribution model from four large processing factories to ensure traceability and food safety.”
The business claims more than 400,000 customers within four cities, trading in fish sourced from 125 Indian coastlines. It reports a turnover of more than ₹12 crore ($1.72 million) GMV per month.
“The meat-and-seafood segment in India is pegged to be a $30 billion market, but we have to keep in mind that it’s a highly fragmented industry,” said CE Ventures director Tushar Singhvi.
“FreshToHome.com is not only trying to streamline the industry, but they’re also using technology to revolutionize the way the industry functions by disintermediating the supply chain, eliminating the middleman, and working directly with the fishermen and farmers in a marketplace model to make fresh and chemical free food accessible to the masses at large.”