India's first cloud kitchen fund and incubator Ghost Kitchens launches with $3M corpus
The startup will leverage its expertise such as in-house capabilities of brand building, menu engineering, warehousing, supply chain, marketing, etc., in running scalable food and beverage retail formats across India.
Restauranteur Karan Tanna launched Ghost Kitchens Pvt Ltd, India's first investment and incubation company for startups in the cloud kitchen segment. The company will focus on India’s fast-growing food delivery market and will incubate and invest in companies that focus only on home delivery.
It will leverage its expertise such as in-house capabilities of brand building, menu engineering, warehousing, supply chain, marketing, and other ecosystem infrastructure, in running scalable food and beverage retail formats across India.
It has a planned corpus of $3 million for the first tranche, where it will invest in at least 15 brands. Currently, it is investing in two cloud kitchen companies with 12 brands, and is available in 50 locations.
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"The company will provide growth capital to brands that are already performing well in the home delivery formats for their growth to multiple stores. Since the margins in home delivery are small, Ghost Kitchens will also provide a common infrastructure, raw material, supply chain support, and kitchen premises along with marketing and administrative support, to help brands optimise these costs," Tanna, Founder, and CEO of Ghost Kitchens, said.
The startup plans to have an investment portfolio of 50 brands and 1,000 internet restaurants or point-of-sale (PoS) in three years. It is now in the process of identifying and shortlisting a few companies that are already running cloud kitchens with multiple brands.
Ghost Kitchens will invest in diversified cuisines ranging from Indian, Chinese, desserts and milkshakes, South Indian, and specialist cuisines that have an opportunity to scale-up across India. The invested brands will be using the existing delivery aggregators to build a pipeline for orders and for last-mile delivery.
“Cloud kitchen is an exciting phenomenon worldwide. The industry is growing at the highest CAGR as compared to other segment and restaurant industry. The margins are thin and we believe we can add value to the branch by helping them to scale-up quickly, by not only giving growth capital but also a central support system that will enable quick growth and optimise overhead costs. We would be interested in brands that cater to critical mass and also has potential in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. A couple of delivery aggregators are present in more than 200 cities, and that’s where we want to take the potential brands.”
The company will also have a special investment allocated to home chefs, who want to develop their brands for home delivery and scale it up. “We can add value to develop a good brand around a mature product, run by a passionate chef or entrepreneur,” he added.
(Edited by Suman Singh)
