Mumbai: Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has injected $25 million into Rebel Foods, valuing the company at $1.4 billion. The funds will support the Temasek-backed company’s expansion of its physical restaurants and food courts business, marking a strategic evolution for the cloud kitchen giant, three people aware of the development said.
“The company wants to expand restaurant and café business, essentially to expand in an omnichannel way,” said the first of the three persons cited earlier, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Rebel Foods, the operator of Faasos and Behrouz Biryani, declined to comment on the development while Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund did not immediately respond to Mint’s request for comment.
Read more: Quick commerce, long payback: Can Zomato and Swiggy deliver returns to shareholders?
“The company wants to start some key restaurants and food courts where their branded food items can be sold and dined in. They now want to have an omnichannel approach. This is likely to challenge any incoming competition from newer players and quick commerce majors,” the second person said.
This person added that most of the fresh funding will be used to expand EatSure, its food court business. The company has been focusing on food court format, and recently tied up with fast food chain Wendy’s in India. It operates under 10 EatSure formats in different cities selling everything from biryani to pizza, cakes and coffee, and plans to open more in the coming years.
Serving up a strategy
The company is likely to use the ₹200 crore to open a small number of stores/restaurants in its key markets including Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Delhi. “The investment from QIA is an extension to the last round in which Temasek pumped in primary capital. The valuation is also the same,” the second person added.
In October last year, Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of Singapore government, bought 20-25% stake in the cloud kitchen chain for $200 million, Mint had reported. At that time, existing investors in the company such as Coatue Management, Lightbox and Peak XV sold part of their stake.
Later, KKR, the US-based global private equity firm, purchased secondary stakes worth an undisclosed sum from these investors. Mint had reported in December, citing an unnamed source, that KKR was set to buy Rebel Foods shares worth $50-75 million from existing investors, valuing the startup at $800-860 million.
Rebel Foods is also planning an initial public offering in the next 12-18 months, Mint had reported.
With this, Temasek will be the largest single non-founder shareholder in the company. The founders hold around 12% stake in the Mumbai-based company and QIA holds around 9.9% stake. In October 2021, the company raised $175 million in its Series F funding round from investors led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) at a valuation of $1.4 billion.
Read more: Consumer brands set to write the influencer marketing playbook to push rural sales?
Founded in 2011 by Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee, Rebel Foods operates cloud kitchen brands such as Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, Oven Story Pizza, Mandarin Oak, The Good Bowl, SLAY Coffee, Sweet Truth and Wendy’s, apart from operating offline stores in India. In all, it operates over 450 kitchens in over 70 cities. It has a portfolio of over 45 brands across multiple countries including India, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and the UK.
The company reduced its losses to ₹378 crore in FY24 from a net loss of ₹657 crore the year before, driven by better margins and economies of scale across its portfolio, Mint reported in August. Its revenue from operations saw a modest rise to ₹1,420 crore in FY24, up from ₹1,195 crore the previous year, while expenses remained flat at ₹1,857 crore, the report said.
