Gourmet meat startup Licious on Tuesday announced that it has raised $52 million in Series G round led by IIFL AMC’s late stage tech fund and Aventus. The latest fundraise happened at a post-money valuation of a billion dollars, making the Bengaluru-based startup 29th unicorn to emerge out India, amidst the unprecedented funding boom.
“Even though the funding for D2C sector has grown significantly, FMCG is still not considered the most attractive category. We expect that Licious’ Unicorn status will change that. The fresh meats & seafood sector is still largely underserved and unorganised that holds a vast opportunity of $40 bn”, Vivek Gupta & Abhay Hanjura, Co-Founders, Licious, said in a statement.
“We will continue to build the category through investments in technology for supply chain excellence, product innovation, talent, and vendor partner upgrades”, they added.
Founded in 2015 by Abhay Hanjura (right) and Vivek Gupta, Licious operates an eponymous e-commerce platform where it sells meat and seafood in 14 Indian cities.
“Licious has disrupted the meat and seafood category, which has largely been unorganized and underserved,” said Chetan Naik of IIFL AMC
Notably, Licious is one of the first unicorns to emerge from India’s thriving direct-to-consumer (D2C) space.In July, the company had raised $192 million as part of its series F round from a clutch of investors, comprising Singapore-headquartered investment company Temasek
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The fundraise round also saw participation from Brunei Investment Agency and existing investors such as Bertelsmann India Investments, 3one4 Capital, Vertex Growth Fund, and Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India. The current annual revenue rate for the company is reportedly Rs 1,000 crore per annum. Licious has successfully delivered to more than 2 million unique customers till date.
