InnerChef secures $2.5M funding from Japan's Mistletoe & others

Gurugram-based food ordering platform InnerChef has raised $2.5 million funding led by Japanese early-stage fund Mistletoe with participation from Singapore-based M&S Partners and InnerChef's existing investors, reports The Times of India.
The company plans to use the funds raised to focus on its top markets - Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.

"We plan to invest the money in building a brand. We have started adding more kitchens across our four locations. Desserts in InnerChef are taken care of by women entrepreneurs, who are mainly neighbourhood chefs. We are looking to enable 10,000 women entrepreneurs who can make a livelihood on our platform. We want to focus on the first four cities for the next six months," InnerChef co-founder Rajesh Sawhney said.

Prior to this, InnerChef had raised around Rs 11 crore funding from a clutch of investors including Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma, redBus co-founder Phanindra Sama, Shaadi.com's Anupam Mittal and GOQii founder Vishal Gondal among others. Anand Chandrasekaran, Facebook Messenger's head of platform/partnerships and formerly the chief product officer at Snapdeal, is also an investor in InnerChef.

Started in 2015 by Rajesh Sawhney, Sanjeev Singhal and Bal Dighent, InnerChef offers ready-to-eat meals and desserts. It is currently operational in seven Indian cities. In March, InnerChef had acqui-hired two startups - Bengaluru-based EatonGo and Gurgaon-based Flavour Labs.

Mistletoe is backed and owned by Taizo Son, serial entrepreneur and youngest brother of SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son. InnerChef is Mistletoe's maiden investment in India. Globally, it has made more than 15 investments including Southeast Asia's most valuable tech startup Garena, Zipline, Zoox, and Enevo among others.