D2C unicorn, Licious has made a $1 million strategic bet in fresh pet food start-up — Pawfectly Made.

Licious did not disclose the stake acquired in Pawfectly Made as part of this deal. However, it mentioned that there is a strong synergy with Pawfectly Made when it comes to offering fresh products and elevated customer experience.

Nichelle Kamat, VP – Category, Licious, told BusinessLine that the company has not decided on whether they want to acquire Pawfectly Made eventually, and is looking at this deal as a learning journey.

“We need to explore how this relationship works, and what value it adds to both companies. So we will spend some time learning from this relationship and then see whether it is an acquisition or higher investment opportunity going forward,” she said.

Inorganic growth

Kamat also noted that while Licious is taking some steps for inorganic growth, the company’s organic growth continues to grow. In terms of inorganic growth, the company is looking at opportunities that can help Licious build a meat ecosystem, and pet food is one such category.

Pawfectly Made offers customisable fresh pet food made with high-quality ingredients. The start-up will continue to function as a separate entity with its own production processes and supply chain, as Licious comes in as a strategic partner leveraging its understanding of the fresh animal protein sector to guide and scale Pawfectly Made faster. The pet food start-up is currently only present in Bengaluru.

“We at Licious have always been committed to building a brand synonymous with freshness and quality in meats and seafood by bolstering the industry with global standards of sourcing, supply chain and technology. We are equally enthused by business ideas that are adjacent and complementary to our vision of building Licious as the Everything-Meat Brand. 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,” Kamat added.

Founded by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta in 2015, Licious is a D2C unicorn offering a range of meat and meat products across raw and fresh meat and seafood, mariandes, and ready-to-eat categories. In six years, Licious said it has witnessed a 300 per cent growth and has served over three million packs of meat products to consumers across 23 Indian cities including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Kochi, Vizag, Vijayawada and Kolkata, among others . Licious said it serves over 2 million orders every month with over 90 per cent repeat consumption across markets.  It currently has over 6,000 members as part of their team.

comment COMMENT NOW