Rebel Foods gets $25 mn from Qatar Investment Authority for restaurant expansion

“The corporate needs to broaden restaurant and café enterprise, basically to broaden in an omnichannel approach,” mentioned the primary of the three individuals cited earlier, all of whom spoke on the situation of anonymity.

Rebel Foods, the operator of Faasos and Behrouz Biryani, declined to touch upon the event whereas Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund didn’t instantly reply to Mint’s request for remark.

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“The corporate needs to begin some key eating places and meals courts the place their branded meals objects could be bought and dined in. They now wish to have an omnichannel strategy. That is prone to problem any incoming competitors from newer gamers and fast commerce majors,” the second particular person mentioned.

This particular person added that a lot of the recent funding shall be used to broaden EatSure, its meals court docket enterprise. The corporate has been specializing in meals court docket format, and not too long ago tied up with quick meals chain Wendy’s in India. It operates beneath 10 EatSure codecs in several cities promoting all the pieces from biryani to pizza, muffins and occasional, and plans to open extra within the coming years.

Serving up a method

The corporate is probably going to make use of the ₹200 crore to open a small variety of shops/eating places in its key markets together with Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Delhi. “The funding from QIA is an extension to the final spherical during which Temasek pumped in major capital. The valuation can also be the identical,” the second particular person added.

In October final 12 months, Temasek Holdings, the funding arm of Singapore authorities, purchased 20-25% stake within the cloud kitchen chain for $200 million, Mint had reported. At the moment, current buyers within the firm akin to Coatue Administration, Lightbox and Peak XV bought a part of their stake.

Later, KKR, the US-based international personal fairness agency, bought secondary stakes price an undisclosed sum from these buyers. Mint had reported in December, citing an unnamed supply, that KKR was set to purchase Rebel Foods shares price $50-75 million from current buyers, valuing the startup at $800-860 million.

Rebel Foods can also be planning an preliminary public providing within the subsequent 12-18 months, Mint had reported.

With this, Temasek would be the largest single non-founder shareholder within the firm. The founders maintain round 12% stake within the Mumbai-based firm and QIA holds round 9.9% stake. In October 2021, the corporate raised $175 million in its Collection F funding spherical from buyers led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) at a valuation of $1.4 billion.

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Based in 2011 by Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee, Rebel Foods operates cloud kitchen manufacturers akin to Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, Oven Story Pizza, Mandarin Oak, The Good Bowl, SLAY Espresso, Candy Reality and Wendy’s, aside from working offline shops in India. In all, it operates over 450 kitchens in over 70 cities. It has a portfolio of over 45 manufacturers throughout a number of international locations together with India, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and the UK.

The corporate diminished its losses to ₹378 crore in FY24 from a web lack of ₹657 crore the 12 months earlier than, pushed by higher margins and economies of scale throughout its portfolio, Mint reported in August. Its income from operations noticed a modest rise to ₹1,420 crore in FY24, up from ₹1,195 crore the earlier 12 months, whereas bills remained flat at ₹1,857 crore, the report mentioned.