[Funding alert] QSR startup Charcoal Eats raises Rs 16Cr from Lokmat Investments

Charcoal Eats, the Mumbai-headquartered quick service restaurant (QSR) startup, on Thursday said it has raised Rs 16 crore in a funding round led by Lokmat Investments — a division of multi-platform media company Lokmat Media. 

The round also saw participation from other key investors, including business leaders from financial and FMCG world such as Nilesh Mehta, Girish Patel, Pankaj Razdan, Chetan Mehrotra, and Sanjay Teli. Existing investors, including Sanjay Bhandarkar, Rajesh Ramanathan, and actor Riteish Deshmukh also participated.

Charcoal Eats will use the fresh fund to strengthen its presence in different parts of the country, as well as invest in brand building, it said in a statement.

Founded in September 2015 by Anurag Mehrotra, Krishnakant Thakur, Mohammed Bhol, and Gautam Singh, Charcoal Eats is a tech-enabled, Indian QSR startup that delivers high-quality, modern Indian flavours to its patrons.

Speaking about the investment, Anurag Mehrotra, Co-founder and CEO, Charcoal Eats, said,

“We have successfully achieved consistency and scalability in the Indian QSR segment, which are two major challenges in this space. In the last five years, we have served over 1.5 million orders and enjoy high customer satisfaction. The new investment reiterates our commitment towards building a high-quality Indian QSR brand, and our investors’ confidence in the scalability of our model.”

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"Charcoal Eats has successfully married interesting food concepts with superior technology and efficient operations. This will help them profitably scale up faster compared to most of their peers", added Rishi Darda, JMD and Editorial Director, Lokmat Media.

The startup operates in nine Indian cities namely, Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Jammu, Aurangabad, Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, and Kolkata. 

Charcoal Eats claims to offer quality, all-day food options across snack and meal times across a wide array of biryanis, paneer rolls, rice bowls, starters, beverages, and desserts. It is also available on all leading food platforms such as Zomato, Swiggy, Foodpanda India, Dineout, etc.