Ahmedabad-based cloud-kitchen startup, Rolling Plates has raised $150,000 in its pre-seed fund round from US-based investor EXL Investment LLC.

Rolling Plates, through its food and technology platform, provides a scalable virtual branded restaurant business model under the flagship brand 'Ahmedabadi Biryani', which offers an authentic local taste of biryani. It offers food through a delivery-only mode.

After the pre-seed fundraising, Rolling Plates plans to expand to tier 2 cities, primarily in western India.

After strengthening its foothold in India, the startup plans to venture into the USThe United States as its first global market. It is also in talks with a Tanzania-based food delivery and logistics startup in order to expand into the African market.

Also see: Farm-to-fork: Noida-based firm comes up with low-cost cold chain systems to transport fruits

Besides Ahmedabadi Biryani, the startup also operates two other virtual restaurant brands - The Mughal Treat (an Indian, Mughlai and BBQ delivery brand), and Brunch'O' (a snacks and breakfast delivery brand).

The organised biriyani market in India is estimated to be close to Rs 2,500 cr.

"Being a food-tech startup our priority is to build strong and sound technology that can enhance online ordering experience and logistics capabilities. Going forward we would create a robust data analytics framework that can improve the way we work and the kind of food that we serve to our customers,” says Shihab Sheikh, co-founder, Rolling Plates.

"The startup not only has the potential to grow in India and but also has the potential to make its mark overseas due to the unique taste of ‘Ahmedabad Biryani’. It has high potential to grow in the United States, where there is a large chunk of Indian and Asian diaspora,” said Sadaf Mansuri, founder, EXL Investment LLC.

EXL Investment LLC invested in the real estate space and has recently started diversifying its portfolio by investing in multiple startups.

Founded in 2018, Rolling Plates provides a unique taste of local biryani found only within the walled city of Ahmedabad, still prepared in the style of Mughal era’s old-fashioned traditional cooks called Bhatiyaras .

After multiple deliberations and in-depth research, the promoter couple decided to start with a cloud kitchen (also called a ghost, virtual or dark kitchens), where the focus is on delivery-only via a virtual restaurant business model, leveraging the available technologies that facilitate online food ordering.

The overwhelming market response led to more than 300 deliveries a day mark within three months of its launch.

Biryani is the highest ordered dish online in India according to official data released by food-tech aggregators such as Zomato and Swiggy. Even during the pandemic, biryani continued to dominate the food delivery segment and remained the highest dish ordered online in India.