[Funding alert] Wow! Momo raises Rs 45 Cr debt from Anicut Capital
Wow! Momo will use this fresh funding to repay the old loan, and also use it for growth as the company’s business has crossed 60 percent of pre-COVID levels.
Quick service restaurant (QSR) brand Wow! Momo Foods has raised Rs 60 crore in debt funding from Anicut Capital and will use this fund to repay old loan as well growth capital.
Wow! Momo Foods will repay the Rs 35 crore loan taken from Avendus Finance in 2018. The company has availed a loan facility of Rs 45 crore from Anicut Capital and has the option to raise another Rs 15 crore by April 2021.
The QSR brand said its business is back to 65 percent of the pre-COVID level, and expects to touch 75-80 percent in October, given the festive season ahead.
Wow! Momo Foods CEO and Co-founder Sagar Daryani said, “Ours has been a story of agility and adaptability. These crucial times may have brought our business down initially but we always found new ways and undertook initiatives which helped us stay afloat. We have been more robust than ever with a change in business models, newer collaboration with Café Coffee Day to open Shop-In- Shop formats.”
The company which owns two brands — Wow! Momo and Wow! China, saw its business plummeting to 10 percent of monthly turnovers in April 2020 as compared to February of this year. However, it has made a turnaround with delivery business getting back to 180 percent growth when compared to the pre-COVID times. In fact, in September, the company recorded three lakh orders and expects this number to touch four lakh in October.
On the changes that the company undertook, Sagar said, “Setting up new business verticals and total of 31 new point of sale opening in past six months. We have also taken a conscious call to shut down over 30 non-performing outlets nationally and the complete focus to get back to profitability at the earliest as was the scenario in pre-COVID times ”
The company currently has over 357 stores across the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, and Kolkata. Out of this, around 290 are currently operational and 60 of them are shut.
The other key investors in Wow! Momo include Tiger Capital and Lighthouse Funds.
Edited by Kanishk Singh