By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 12th, 2024
Rebel Foods, Mumbai based restaurant quietly raised whopping $125 million cash and is expanding rapidly. The restaurant bounces back after almost shutting its doors, and is currently valued at $535 million startup.
Barely two months ago, Sequoia Capital’s renown venture capitalist issued a warning in a Financial Times Column that recent $575 million investment by Amazon in the Deliveroo, a delivery service company based in London, could spell doom for local restaurants.
Wrote Moritz indicated that:
“Amazon is now one step away from becoming a multi-brand restaurant company — and that could mean doomsday for many dining haunts.”
To some extent, Moritz was correct to influence more focus on the deal. Currently, Deliveroo has started running shared kitchens from which it will not only transport ordered meals to clients but also properly prepare it. His warning may as well greatly influenced the issue in the new stand of Britain’s competition enforcers to stop operation on investment by Amazon to enable it first to investigate whether the partnership constitutes competitive distress.
Moritz is experienced and understands the rules of the game due to Sequoia’s early investment in Rebel Foods, initially recognized as Faasos, a once-tiny Pune, India-situated firm that now cooks a variety of meals in its cloud kitchens. As he maintained in the same publication, Faasos greatly spearheaded the trend. However, the expansion of the nine-year-old firm is a bit magnificent.
World Largest Internet Restaurant
Last month, Rebel raised $ 125 million in the latest capital from Goldman Sachs, Coatue Management, and Indonesian delivery service Go-Jek, now running 235 kitchens all over 20 Indian cities. Moreover, it’s processing 2 million orders monthly.
While it launched operation as a chain of kebab restaurants, that initial idea, Faasos, is presently among the eight extra brands that Rebel controls, including a pizza brand known as Oven Story; a Chinese concept termed Mandarin Oak; a tea brand known as Kettle & Kegs; and a famous brand recognized as Behrouz through which Rebel prepares and sell slow-properly cooked biryani rice foods.
Interestingly, Rebel Foods isn’t the only powerhouse in the fast-moving operator relying on cloud kitchen to provide every type of cuisine conceivable under a single roof. According to Bloomberg, the company is currently valued at $525 million.
However, there are some doubts that Rebel is diving into new markets in a supersonic speed. Bloomberg revealed that the plan is currently underway for the Company and Go-Jek’s to construct 100 cloud kitchens in Indonesia over the next one and half years. It also plans to launch 20 cloud kitchens resources in the United Arab Emirates by the end of this year.
About Rebel Foods
Rebel was established by Jaydeep Barman, an INSEAD MBA graduate from Mumbai native who spent averagely four years with McKinsey before collaborating with Kallol Banerjee, business school classmate to build Faasos.
Besides raising funds from Sequoia early, the firm was once in danger of shutting down their doors, in part due to expensive rents as well as employee turnover. Fortunately, a turning point emerged when the duo shut down their business and launch their first centralized kitchen.
That dramatic idea would prove essential. Not only did Rebel overcome the obstacles, but also today, the company operates approximately 1,600 restaurants.