[Funding alert] Country Delight raises $25M in Series C round led by Elevation Capital, IIFL AMC

Bengaluru-based home food essential brand Country Delight has raised $25 million Series C funding led by Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF partners) with participation from scheme(s) managed by IIFL AMC. The round also saw participation from existing investors Matrix Partners India and Orios Venture Partners.

The funding will be used by the team to develop and launch a range of food essentials like cold-pressed edible oils, fruits and vegetables, batters, pulses, jams, pickles, and other essentials. Founded in 2015 by Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal, Country Delight is a direct-to home-consumer brand that offers products in the affordable-premium segment for daily subscriptions and delivery across their distribution network.

Chakradhar Gade, Co-founder, Country Delight, said in a statement,

"Direct customer connect gives us a strong feedback loop and helps us iterate towards near-perfect products. Tech plays a very big role in building quality traceability and supply chain at scale - all of this while staying very capital efficient. We want to give our customers the best quality products at the lowest possible price & directly to their doorstep." 

Country Delight started with milk and has since expanded to dairy products and stapes. Following a full stack business model, Country Delight sources all its produce directly from farms within a 150-200 km radius.

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Its supply chain is a completely tech/IOT-enabled system, which ensures a fully traceable source provenance and only the highest quality product. All deliveries are made within 24-36 hours from collection, keeping the brand ethos of purity & freshness intact.

"We have been thoroughly impressed by the evolution of the team's vision over time, bottoms-up thinking, customer obsession and focus on capital efficient growth. The company has a truly unique business model and is one of the few consumer businesses in India with phenomenal retention metrics. We are super excited to partner with them in this journey of creating India's most loved pure & fresh daily essentials brand," said Deepak Gaur, Partner, Elevation Capital.

Country Delight now has a supply chain network spanning across six states across north India, and predominantly west India. It gives them access to high-quality raw materials, milk, wheat, oils, and access to a large range of poultry

Prashasta Seth, Senior Managing Partner at IIFL AMC said, “Country Delight is a unique D2C brand with a strong customer proposition in terms of freshness, purity, and minimally-processed product offering at an affordable premium price. Through the daily subscription model, owned distribution and use of technology for quality check, Country Delight has demonstrated superior offering and a strong customer connect in the Food Essentials space. We are happy to partner with Matrix Partners, Orios Ventures, and Elevation Capital and back the highly pedigreed promoters of Country Delight – Chakradhar and Nitin.”

Country Delight  serves nearly 1.5 lakh households across key cities in India. The startup is now serving its customers fresh cow and buffalo milk , Ghar Jaisa Dahi, Desi Daanedar Ghee, Taaza Paneer, fresh breads, and eggs. All the deliveries are made within 24-36 hours from collection, keeping the brand ethos of purity and freshness intact.

Avnish Bajaj, Founder and Managing Director, Matrix India, said, 

“We are fortunate to have partnered with Chakri and Nitin early in their journey of building Country Delight and are excited about this milestone. The business has further expanded into fresh food, and the resilience of the full stack and digital first business model was evident during the recent COVID disruption with an acceleration in the growth of the business. We welcome Elevation Capital and IIFL as new partners and look forward to the journey ahead!”