Condiments and sauce maker Veeba Food Services Pvt. Ltd has raised a little over $6 million (Rs40 crore) in a series C round led by its existing investor Verlinvest, the Belgium-based investment holding company of Anheuser-Busch InBev founding families, said two people aware of the development.
Verlinvest manages €1.8 billion in assets across the globe. Incorporated in 2013, Veeba Food supplies sauces and dips to restaurants and fast-food chains including KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Taco Bell, Domino’s and Starbucks. The company was started by Viraj Bahl, a former head of packaged foods firm Fun Foods, which was sold to German food maker Dr. Oetker in 2008.
“Veeba has just closed its latest round of fundraising, its series C round, from its existing investors. Verlinvest, has led the round with a $4 million investment in the company, while other existing investors including DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital have brought in the rest,” said one of the two people aware of the development, requesting anonymity as the talks are private.
DSG Consumer Partners has invested through its latest fund DSG Tyeb, which it is raising for follow-on investments in its portfolio companies, he added.
The latest round of fundraising also saw the entry of a new investor into Veeba.
“Nikhil Vora’s Sixth Sense Ventures has bought a small stake in the company through a secondary purchase of shares from existing investors. Sixth Sense has invested around $2 million,” said the second person cited above, also requesting anonymity, adding that this round values the company close to $100 million.
Veeba founder Bahl, in a telephonic interaction, confirmed the development. However, Bahl declined to comment on the financial details of the transaction.
“The money has been raised for more distribution push, across the country, for our retail business. Within two years of starting our retail business we have been able to establish a national footprint and today we are present not just in the metro cities, but also in cities such as Ludhiana and Vellore,” said Bahl.
“When we started we were clear that Veeba will be a B2C company, but given that this is a very competitive sector and the fact that building a retail brand requires a lot of time, effort and money, we started with B2B to first build our brand and scale,” said Bahl.
The retail business contributes a significant proportion of Veeba’s revenue and is growing at a fast pace, Bahl added.
In October 2016, Veeba Food raised $6 million in a Series B round of fundraising from Saama Capital and Verlinvest. Earlier, in 2015, the company raised $6 million from DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital.
Source: Mint