[Funding alert] Licious invests $1 mn in fresh pet food startup, Pawfectly Made

Bengaluru-based meat and seafood brand, Licious has invested $1 million in Pawfectly Made, a fresh pet food startup.

Pawfactly Made will continue to operate as a separate entity with its production processes and supply chain, as Licious comes in as a strategic partner to rapidly guide and scale Powfactly Mede's own market for the fresh animal protein sector, the company said in a statement.

Founded in 2020 by Arpita Ganesh, Pawfactly Made is a pet food services startup that cooks and delivers homemade health pet-friendly meals.

The fresh pet food segment in India is at a turning point, prompting both Indian and international players to introduce their diverse products to the rapidly growing user base.

“We saw perfect synergy with Licious when it came to their expertise on supply chain and technology that could help scale Pawfectly Made faster. Their commitment to superior quality and freshness, deep understanding of the Indian market and obsession with delivering great value to the customers were key factors that convinced us of the efficacy of this investment and the overall partnership”, said, Arpita Ganesh founder and CEO of Pawfactly Made.

As per TechSci research report, the Indian pet food market is growing at a CAGR of 18 percent and is expected to reach $642 million by the end of 2022. Despite the growth opportunities offered by the industry, the pet food sector in India has limited options and customers largely rely on pre-packaged processed food.

Founded in 2015 by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, Licious claims to have witnessed 300% growth and has served over 3 million packs of world class meat products to consumers across India.

“Pawfectly Made is a good strategic fit for us given the shared vision and synergies across the value chain. The investment will give us access to a unique consumer play and product portfolio that will complement our existing infrastructure”, said, Nichelle Kamat, VP-Category, Licious.

About Lucious

Founded by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, Licious is a consumer food company, focused at delighting the world with an unmatched range of meat & meat products. Present in raw & fresh meat and seafood, marinades and ready-to-eat categories, Licious is set to disrupt every food category that needs a meaty intervention! The company is built with a vision to emerge as India’s most loved meat food brand by offering premium quality products.

In a highly underserved market, which is estimated at $40 billion today, Licious as a category-first brand backed by technology, has been able to solve the prevailing customer pain points of quality, hygiene, freshness and convenience in a sustainable manner. Built on the farm to fork business model, Licious owns the entire back-end supply chain powered by stringent cold chain control to maintain the quality and freshness of each product from the time of procurement, processing, storage to the time it reaches the end consumer.

In just 5 years Licious has witnessed a 300% growth and has served over three million packs of world class meat products to consumers across Bangalore, Hyderabad, NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Kochi, Vizag, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Pondicherry & Kolkata. Licious serves over 1mn orders every-month with over 90% repeat consumption across markets.

As a category leader and the largest direct to consumer fresh meat and seafood brand, Licious has been able to build differentiation across all dimensions including technology, data science, supply chain, product quality, consumer engagement and category understanding. With a seamless supply chain capabilities which is cold chain powered and scientifically maintains global standard of quality and freshness of each product, Licious is ahead of the curve and holds a great distinction to drive the meat and seafood category which has remained highly unorganized.