An online marketplace for fresh meat, Licious now possesses 11 delivery hubs, employs around 250 people, and processed 50,000 orders in 2017

Licious Co-founders Abhay Hanjura (L) and Vivek Gupta

Licious, an online meat marketplace run by Bangalore-based Delightful Gourmet Pvt. Ltd, has secured US$10 million in Series B funding round led by existing investors Mayfield India and 3one4 Capital. Russia-based Sistema Asia Fund and South Korean VC firm Neoplux Technology Fund have also joined the round. This is Neoplux’s maiden investment in India.

The funding will boost business growth for Licious and facilitate its expansion plans into other markets like Hyderabad and Delhi-NCR.

“It is heartening to note that in an investor environment that is fraught with uncertainty, we have managed to secure some of the most reputed funding companies to put faith in our business. Our strengths lie in the fact that we work on sound business fundamentals that focus on profitability and sustainability. The Series B fund will greatly aid us in beefing up our back-end and expanding in newer markets after strongly laying the foundation in the Bangalore market.” said Vivek Gupta, Co-founder at Licious.

Founded in July 2015 by Abhay Hanjura and Gupta, Licious aims to solve the perennially existing problem of finding safe, delectable, trustworthy fresh meat in India. Licious aims at being your one stop shop for all your meat cravings – be it fresh juicy tender chicken or succulent lamb chops or the day’s catch of fresh seafood.

Headquartered in Bangalore and recently expanded to Hyderabad, Licious has formulated a zero inventory model. It has built contractual arrangement with large institutional meat vendors who are trained on managing livestock and meat handling techniques. At present, it offers five broad product categories – fresh chicken, lamb, seafood, marinates and cold-cuts.

Meat products are sourced after stringent internal quality checks and processed at the state of the art processing unit owned and operated by Licious. The orders can be placed via phone, website or mobile app. Delivery is through patented, secure, vacuum sealed, temperature controlled containers with the maximum guaranteed delivery time of 120 minutes.

The online meat marketplace has expanded exponentially in the past two years and now possesses 11 delivery hubs and employs around 250 people across different functions in their company. The number of orders has grown from 1,000 in the first month to a 50,000 orders in 2017, according to a press release.

Licious has previously raised US$3.5 million in Series A funding from 3one4 Capital and Mayfield Capital in April last year. This was preceded by a angel funding round at the time of launch.

“Licious is a first mover in building a full stack meat gourmet brand in a market where demand is unconstrained (70 per cent + non-vegetarians) and supply is largely unorganised (over 90 per cent). The company has exhibited rapid scale and customer loyalty in Bangalore in a capital efficient manner,” said Dhruv Kapoor, MD, Sistema Asia Fund Advisory.

Other startups operating in the meat e-tailing space are Zappfresh and FreshToHome.

Image Credit: Licious

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