B2B ecommerce firm Udaan invests $1.9 mn in food-tech platform PetPooja

In its first investment in a startup, business to business (B2B) ecommerce firm Udaan has invested $1.94 million in a Series A round in restaurant management platform PetPooja.

The funding was routed through Singapore headquartered Trustroot Internet, the holding company of Bengaluru-based Udaan. 

In December, Trustroot Payments, a subsidiary of Trustroot Internet, acquired 6,667 shares of Prayosha Food Services, which owns and operates PetPooja, at Rs 20,590 per share, regulatory filings show.

Started in 2011 by Apurv Patel as a food delivery service to corporates, the company later pivoted into providing restaurant management services such as billing, operations management and self-ordering app. It uses artificial intelligence and data science to provide the services.

This the first institutional funding raised by PetPooja from a corporate, as per regulatory filings. The company has so far raised funds from angel investors.  

The development was first reported by The Economic Times. Udaan expects to benefit from PetPooja’s data on the fresh supplies business, as the platform has so far on-boarded over 12,000 restaurants, the report said, citing sources.  

Although there is room for growth in the B2B ecommerce space, competition is likely to intensify as other major players are set to enter the fray. Udaan’s investment comes two months after global retailer Walmart along with its Indian unit Flipkart invested in Tiger Global-backed Ninjacart.

Separately, Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture Partners-backed Jumbotail and Amazon are ramping up operations. Also, oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries is also planning to set up its own supply chain for kirana shops.

In FY19, Udaan’s losses expanded to Rs 338 crore from Rs 59 crore and a four-fold growth in revenues from operations to Rs 12 crore. In addition to this, the ‘other income’ or income it received from investments, segment too almost equalled revenues at Rs 11.6 crore, taking the total income to Rs 23 crore against Rs 6.5 crore in the previous year.