Licious, an online retailer of meat and seafood, revealed on Tuesday that it had raised $150 million. Amansa Capital, based in Singapore, led the Series F2 round, which also included Kotak PE and Axis Growth Avenues AIF – I.
Nithin and Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha, Aman Gupta of BoAt, and Haresh Chawla of True North were among those who took part in the round. For the deal, Avendus served as Licious’s only financial advisor.
Despite the fact that the company has not disclosed its worth, it claims to be India’s most valuable direct-to-consumer (D2C) startup. Mamaearth and Licious are the only D2C unicorns in India right now. Mensa Businesses has also joined the club, but it is a D2C brand house, which means they will buy and scale lesser D2C brands.
“This valuation is a direct outcome of the value that we have created for our stakeholders – investments made towards building the category have borne us rich dividends and have propelled growth for the company and its people. The growing interest of investors – from India and abroad alike is an added assurance that obsession with customers, quality and service standards are the pillars of the best businesses,” Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura, cofounders of Licious, said in a statement.
A direct-to-consumer brand is one that sells its products directly to consumers rather than depending heavily on third parties. To supply a product to customers, a more traditional retailer follows a longer chain — manufacturer/producer> to wholesaler> to distributor> to retailer > to customer.
The news comes just six months after Licious was inducted into the unicorn club with a $1 billion valuation. In October 2021, the firm raised $52 million in a round led by IIFL AMC’s Late Stage Tech Fund.
Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta launched Licious roughly six years ago. The business operates on a farm-to-folk approach, which means it controls the entire supply chain from sourcing to selling. To ensure the quality of its products from procurement to storage, the company has developed a rigorous cold chain control system.
