Yumlane, cloud kitchen food brand platform raised Pre-Series A $1mn led by Singapore based fund Jetty Ventures. Having established a product-market fit, Yumlane currently has 30 PODs across Bangalore and Pune. The investment round led by Jetty Ventures will enable the cloud kitchen startup to expand in new cities and hiring.
An ex- Private Equity Executive turned Food Entrepreneur, Hitesh Ahuja, Founder & CEO of Yumlane said “We are extremely pleased with Jetty Ventures endorsement of our cloud kitchen business and welcome them on-board. We believe cloud kitchen format will be the flagbearer of the food services industry in the coming years and expect more consumers to order online food delivery vis-à-vis eat-out.”
Speaking further about the rationale behind Jetty Ventures backing the fast-rising cloud kitchen food brand, Chirag Meswani, Managing Partner, Jetty Ventures commented, “Both Global & Indian markets have shown a clear consumer preference towards order-in for non-occasional meals. The F&B industry has seen the QSR format carve a significant share in the eat-out food services space especially in the organized chain segment. Conditions are right for order-in preference to carve a large share in the overall market. Cloud Kitchens will be a capital efficient format for this thesis to play out. Yumlane’s operations since its pivot to the Cloud Kitchen model in January 2019 has shown demand from the consumers. Hitesh, Rahul, and Reuben bring complementary skills and conviction to pull this all the way. Yumlane can deliver hygiene at scale and we see the venture benefit from the post-COVID consumer preferences. We are excited about this space and our investment in Yumlane!”.
The cloud kitchen market is expected to grow to a $6bn industry by 2025 and Yumlane is the fastest growing player in the space. The Qwikpik Technology Pvt. Ltd. owned food brand platform has previously raised funds in the past by Binny Bansal (Ex-Cofounder / CEO Flipkart), RB Investments and Orios Venture Partners
In early 2019, Yumlane pivoted their business model from a FMCG packaged food startup to cloud kitchen and is founded by Hitesh Ahuja, Rahul Kumar and Reuben Ghosh. Yumlane managed to operate the kitchens during the lockdown phase due to COVID-19 and noticed a slight dip in sales due to supply side constraints and has recovered since the food delivery environment is inching back to normalcy