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Slurrp Farm secures Rs 0.5 crore to expand millet based offerings & increase global footprint
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Friday, 25 February, 2022, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, Bengaluru
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Millet based food start up, Wholsum Foods, maker of children’s food brand, Slurrp Farm has raised Rs 0.5 crore in a fresh round of fundraising led by Investment Corporation of Dubai, the sovereign wealth fund of the Government of Dubai, and existing investor Fireside Ventures, a multi-stage venture fund. The fundraise comes a year after Fireside Ventures’ initial investment of $2 million in the company.
In the past, the company has also raised $1 million from over 20 angel investors including well known investors such as Rakesh Kapoor, former CEO of Reckitt Benckiser, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder and executive vice chairman, Info Edge, Ashish Dhawan, founder & CEO, Central Square Foundation, Aditya Ghosh, board member of Akasa, Fab India, and OYO, Yasemin Lamy, deputy CIO of impact investment group CDC, and Samrath Bedi, executive director, Forest Essentials, among others.
Ahead of the International Year of Millets in 2023, the fresh capital secured will help further the company’s core purpose of developing millet-based products with zero junk ingredients. The funds will be deployed towards product innovation, marketing as well as increasing global footprint.
The fundraise comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the growth of the company, as consumers became more health conscious, enabling the brand to register a 10x growth from June 2020 till December 2021.
Meghana Narayan and Shauravi Malik, co-founders and co-CEOs of Wholsum Foods Pvt Ltd., said, “We have a deep-rooted conviction to bringing millets back to the meals we eat and making them incredibly delicious. UN-designated Year of Millets strengthens our commitment to lead the conversation on these super grains. We are growing steadily and currently clocking in over Rs 50 crore of revenue run rate, with an aim to reach Rs 500 crore in revenue by 2025. The funds raised will enable us to build a global Indian FMCG brand.”
Kanwaljit Singh, founder and managing partner, Fireside Ventures, said, “We believe that building sustainable brands is the dual responsibility of investors and brands alike. In this context, as conscious consumption increases, Wholsum Food’s vision of bringing back supergrains like millets is perfectly in line with people and planet development goals. In that sense, our investment ethos and the core values which drive these two founders, are a good match.”
Nader Bekhouche, principal – Investment (Growth Equity), ICD, said, “The Slurrp Farm brand is backed by the goodness of superfood ingredients like millets and has built enormous appeal for itself since inception. We believe that Wholsum Foods fits this bill perfectly and is poised to achieve significant scale.”
2021 was an incredibly high growth year for the company as flagship brand achieved several milestones. These were 20 new SKUs were launched, entry into UAE, UK and US as it began retailing in these countries. The brand won the Amazon Global Selling Propel Start-up Accelerator program, it strengthened its leadership through key hires across its finance, marketing and business development teams. The company and Akshaya Patra Foundation formed a ‘Food For All Children’ partnership programme.
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