Celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor and hospitality business expert Ravi Saxena, who promote kitchen appliances firm Wonderchef, said they will invest up to USD 2 million (about Rs. 13 crore) for an undisclosed stake in ZuperMeal, online marketplace for home cooked meals.
They have joined hands with two international partners to invest in the two-month-old Mumbai-based startup.
A very interesting area according to chef Sanjeev Kapoor is the opportunity to boost food processing at the household level through ZuperMeal.
Prior to Wonderchef, Ravi Saxena has built companies like Sodexo, Gloria Jean’s Coffee and Yellow Chilli Restaurant Franchise.
“Funds would be utilised to upgrade our technology, expand the zuper-hub network, add talent to the team and create brand awareness” ZuperMeal’s co-founder Pallavi Saxena said.
“ZuperMeal aims to reach sales of Rs. 4,500 crore across 500 towns with 60,000 home chefs by 2020,” she said.
Currently, ZuperMeal has 150 homemakers registered on the platform and dishes out an average of 60 to 70 meals a day, earning a net margin of 15 per cent.
Eating out is a growing pie, but is expensive owing to the brick and mortar infrastructure of the restaurant, rising rentals and increasing service tax and value added taxes constituting over 20 per cent of the food bill, she pointed out.
“We will look at carving out a significant market share of this pie. The differentiator would be our cutting edge technology both for consumer interface as well as the management of logistics,” Balasubramanian A, chief operating officer ZuperMeal said.
