B2B food-tech startup HungerBox bags $2.5 mn in pre-Series A round

Bangalore-headquartered HungerBox, an online platform that connects caterers and corporates, has raised $2.5 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Singapore-based Lionrock Capital.

Axilor Ventures founder and Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan also participated in the round, the company said in a statement.

Founded nearly two years ago, HungerBox is promoted by GrowthStory, the venture-builder platform set up by serial enterpreneur K Ganesh and Meena Ganesh.

HungerBox currently operates in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai and Jaipur.

Sandipan Mitra, co-founder & chief executive officer of Hungerbox, told VCCircle that the funds would primarily be used to extend the startup’s full- stack offerings to all eight cities besides deepening operations in existing markets.

“HungerBox’s business has scaled tremendously over the last 15 months with nearly seven million orders placed on our platform till date,” said Mitra, who co-founded the startup along with Uttam Kumar. “We are clocking more than 120,000 daily orders and expect to scale this to half a million orders per day by end-2018.”

Operated by Eat Good Technologies Pvt Ltd, the B2B-focused online platform essentially offers an end-to-end solutions and services catering to the F&B needs of corporates.

The company has four different categories of solutions clubbed together as a single offering, informally dubbed as the digital cafeteria management platform.

Based on the reimbursement benefits offered by their company, employees can access and avail the services offered by the platform through a mobile phone. They can then access an F&B menu provided by all enlisted food vendors, place orders and get food delivered.

The 200-member strong HungerBox also provides admin teams at the client’s organisation with the ability to track the entire F&B operation in real-time.

The company operates more than 100 digital cafeterias for more than 75 corporate clients including Qualcomm, Microsoft, FirstSource, Accenture, Capgemini, Genpact, ABB, Amazon and McKinsey.

Ventures in the broader F&B segment have attracted investment in recent months. Earlier this month, Pune-based HW Wellness Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which owns and operates health foods startup True Elements, raised Rs 5 crore ($788,500) in a pre-Series A funding round led by the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group.

Last month, speciality tea e-tailer Teabox.com, operated by Bengaluru- and Singapore-based AsianTeaxpress Pte. Ltd,raised $7 million (Rs 45 crore) in a Series B round from Singapore-headquartered investment firm RB Investments and existing investors.

In the same month, Delhi-based tea e-tailer Vahdam Teas Pvt. Ltd had raised $1.4 million (Rs 9 crore) in a Series A round led by existing investor Fireside Ventures.