Imly.in is a portal with a difference. This online marketplace serves up Italian salads, Mexican wraps or spicy Indian delicacies to low-fat sugar-free desserts.

The only difference is that each of these dishes is prepared by a different chef. And, customers tired of eating at the same restaurant or looking for something different, have a wide variety to choose from.

Started by a 24-year-old, Imly.in offers home-made food that is as light on your stomach as it is on your wallet.

Abhishek Singh, founder of Imly.in, got the idea when licking away the last bit of mother-made Imlichutney (tamarind paste). And, what better name to have for his venture!

“My mom is a wonderful cook but she had no opportunity to show that to the world. That’s when it struck me why not start something that could not only help my mom display her culinary skills, but also earn her some money. I had for long been telling her to start a restaurant but that was not feasible,” said Singh, who skipped higher studies at New York University to start this venture.

A commerce graduate from HR College in Mumbai, Singh regrets not pursuing science as that would have made him tech savvy. Before opening Imly.in, Singh started a few offline ventures from designing 3D cars to renting out vintage cars for weddings and corporate events.

Imly.in started in March in a commodities trading firm in suburban Bhayander in Mumbai. That is how Singh’s co-founder, Pavan Mishra, became a part of the venture. “Pavan had this trading firm and we decided to set up our outfit in one corner in his office,” Singh said. The idea was to create a platform for everyone passionate about cooking but with very little opportunity to showcase their talent.

It allows people to order fresh food from kitchens and homes around the cities the service is available. Currently, the offline support is in Mumbai but chefs from Mohali, Chandigarh, Delhi, Pune and Hyderabad have set up stores on Imly.in. “We give our chefs complete flexibility and freedom to control their stores right from posting their menus and pictures to deciding the pricing, delivery and preparation time,” Singh said.

Revenue model

While all these features are free at present, he will soon charge a subscription fee and also go in for a revenue share model per delivery. However, opening a store on the Web site will be free. Currently the business, which had gone though the bootcamp of venture capital firm IndiaQuotient, is not spinning any revenues.

On other features, Singh said that ‘Suggest a chef’ button on the Web site allows anyone to suggest their friends or relatives. The portal also has a Facebook page for each chef. However, no quality checks are done from within the system as Imly.in is a community driven site where buyers and foodies rate, curate, review and effectively decide who performs well on this platform.

There is a feature that allows a chef to set a minimum order so that he/she is not flooded with orders that can’t be serviced. The system stops taking orders beyond a number set by the chef.

Payment gateway soon

The six-month-old start-up allows customers make payments by cash on delivery but it plans to install a payment gateway soon. It will soon launch the service in Bangalore. The Web site acquired 100 chefs generating 40 orders a day. We want to have sizeable number of chefs in other cities as well.

On orders, Singh said that it is a new concept but 70 per cent of our chefs have been able to generate at least one order so far. A few have got more than three-four orders. The site will also have a mobile application.

>priyanka.pani@thehindu.co.in.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW