Cloud kitchen brand aggregator Curefoods has announced its merger with Iron Pillar-backed cloud kitchen player Maverix. As part of the deal, Maverix will be merging its business with Curefoods and thus accelerating the latter’s manufacturing capabilities and market presence.
Maverix, which had earlier raised investment from Swiggy, Accel Partners and Zephyr Peacock, opeartes 50 cloud kitchens across Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. It also operates popular food brands such as Great Indian Khichdi, Canteen Central, and Home Plate.
Post the merger, Curefoods will become the second largest cloud kitchen in the country in terms of footprint with the largest manufacturing capability in the fresh food space. The merger allows Curefoods’ market presence to reach 125 kitchens acros 12 cities catering to over 10 cuisines.
Fingerlix, which is operated under Maverix, was founded in 2015 by Shripad Nadkarni, Shree Bharambe, Abhijit Berde, and Varun Khanna.
The fresh development comes two weeks after Curefoods raised $62 Mn in its Series C round of funding. The investment came from Iron Pillar, Chiratae Ventures, Sixteenth Street Capital, and Accel Partners. The round further saw participation from Binny Bansal.
“Of the $62 Mn, $52 Mn came in equity funding, and the remaining $10 Mn came in debt financing from Alteria Capital, BlackSoil Capital & Trifecta Capital,” Curefoods had then said.
Founded by former Flipkart employee Ankit Nagori in 2020, the startup owns multiple brands and runs over 100 cloud kitchens nationwide. Curefoods’ growth in the market has vastly outpaced industry norms, with revenue growing 50% quarter-on-quarter over the last year.
Nagori had cofounded Curefit along with Myntra founder Mukesh Bansal. Earlier last year, in a bid to gain more muscle power in the race to super-app, Tata Digital invested $75 Mn in Curefit. Bansal joined Tata Digital as a president.
Last year in December, Zomato’s investment in participation with Temasek, South Park Commons of $145 Mn helped Curefit enter the prestigious unicorn club.
Coming back to Curefoods, in the first week of January, the startup had acquired five brands taking the tally of brands to 20 in its kitty. The startup had acquired Juno’s Pizza, Cupcake Noggins, Iceberg, Nomad Pizzas, and White Kitchens.
In October last year, Curefoods had acquired seven food brands — MasalaBox, Paratha Box, CakeZone, Ammi’s Biryani, Olio, Crusto’s and Chaat Street. It had also signed exclusive franchise rights of pizza cloud kitchen YumLane, Indian and Mughlai food cloud kitchen Aligarh House, and biryani cloud kitchen Sharief Bhai.
The startup competes against the likes of new entrants to the unicorn club Rebel Foods, Freshmenu, Ola Foods, Swiggy, among others.
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