Charcoal Eats announced a Rs 50 million pre-series A round of funding today led by several HNI investors taking the taking the tech-enabled QSR startup’s total funds raised to Rs. 120 million.
The funding round included names like Rajesh Ramanathan – Head Global Growth Mondelez, Kush Verma – Asoka Capital, Sanjay Bhandarkar – Rothschild, Amit Gupta – New Quest Capital Partners, Vishesh Shrivastav – Temasek, Sachin Khivasara – Bouyant Capital, Chetan Mehrotra. Charcoal Eats currently operates 22 outlets across 6 Indian cities, using the capital raised they are expected to increase their footprint across new geographies. In addition, the startup is also looking to consolidate its presence in existing markets and invest in customer acquisition and brand building. They are targeting to have more than 60 outlets spread across 10 cities by this year end.
Co-founded by Anurag Mehrotra (CEO), Krishnakant Thakur (COO), Gautam Singh (CTO) and Mohammed Bhol (CPO), in Mumbai in September 2015, Charcoal Eats has claimed that they strictly avoid the use of additives such as MSG and artificial food colours.
Speaking on the funds raised, Co-founder & CEO, Anurag Mehrotra said, “Our strong product focus enabled by in-house technology is at the heart of our business. In the last 2 years, we have served over half a million customers and enjoy a high customer satisfaction, resulting in repeat business of over 50%. The new investment reiterates our commitment towards building a sustainable and scalable Indian QSR offering consistent quality across the country.”
He further added that they have managed to achieve consistency and scalability in the Indian QSR segment which are two major challenges within the space.
The market for chain restaurants including cafes and quick service restaurants (QSR) is expected to grow at 20 per cent a year to reach Rs 51,000 crore ($8bn) by 2021 a recent report by the India Food Services Report by National Restaurant Association of India said.
