[Funding alert] Cheelizza raises Rs 4.11 Cr in a seed round led by IAN

Mumbai-based Cheelizza – India Ka Pizza, a chain of exclusively vegetarian pizzas, has raised INR 4.11 crore in a Seed investment round that was coordinated by the Indian Angel Network (IAN).

Hari Balasubramanian, Uday Chatterjee, Deval Tibrewal, and Rajeev Sarda. Co-investors Sagar Daryani, Founder of Wow! Momo; Karan Tanna, Founder of Ghost Kitchens; and Rahul Surana, Principal at an international fund, also took part in the round.

The company intends to utilise the money to globally and dramatically increase its operations.

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“We have been operating in stealth mode over the last 10 years, focused on building the business on strong fundamentals. Cheelizza is the first step towards building a portfolio of pure Vegetarian food brands offering an alternative choice to a large vegetarian population. Over the next 10 years, we will be working on building an Indian pure veg platform built on strong fundamentals of high value, higher quality and highest trust and take it global. We are very grateful to IAN for supporting us and helping us on our growth journey. We will use this capital to hyperscale our business and expand geographically,” said Animesh Lodha, founder, Cheelizza.

Cheelizza will concentrate on opening 20 additional outlets in the upcoming 12 months in order to quickly grow their footprint in Mumbai.

“Cheelizza is uniquely positioned as a pure vegetarian brand and has a vision to become a global pure vegetarian food platform to serve customers across the globe. Animesh and his team are go-getters and we are extremely confident that they would be able to build a portfolio of pure vegetarian food brands which will emerge as a category leader in the QSR space,” said Hari Balasubramanian, lead investor, IAN.

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About Cheelizza

‘Cheelizza – India Ka Pizza,’ a rapidly expanding network of vegetarian pizza restaurants, was established in 2013 by Animesh Lodha with a focus on appealing to vegetarians nationwide.

The locally based pizza restaurant announced in a statement that it is already hiring talent for senior leadership positions in business, operations, HR, and marketing, as well as more than 100 team members for their frontline retail operations.