[Funding alert] Ahmedabad startup Petpooja raises $4.5M from Aroa Ventures, GVFL, Udaan, and other angel investors

Petpooja, a point-of-sale and restaurant management software provider, has announced that it has raised $4.5 million in a funding round led by Aroa Ventures (Family Office of Oyo Founder Ritesh Agarwal). The round saw participation from GVFL, Udaan, Dr Mayur Desai, and other angel investors.

The startup plans to use the funding to bring 1.5 lakh+ outlets over the next two years on the platform, expand its reach in the Middle East and African regions, and leverage its network effects to allow its restaurants to band together for bulk purchases of ingredients and equipment.

Founded by Apurv Patel and Parthiv Patel, Petpooja started offering its simple billing point-of-sale solution in 2014. It has since grown to become a complete restaurant operating system, with an entire suite of modules required by F&B outlets, including inventory management, CRM, online ordering, payments, and analytics.

The startup says that it's core focus has always been individual outlets and small chains, claiming to cover over 95 percent of India’s $40 billion+ foodservice industry. Petpooja also powers several large food chains such as JumboKing, Hocco, La Pino’z, Thalappakatti, Giani’s, Apsara Ice Creams, and more.

Commenting on the funding, Parthiv Patel, Co-founder of Petpooja, said,

“The simplicity of our product, combined with 24x7 support, is exactly what SMBs need to automate operations and bring in efficiency in a highly competitive foodservice market. Foodservice has been the most digitised market with over 100 B2C players in the field, including delivery aggregators, dine-in ordering, online ordering, table reservation, loyalty, payments, ERP, etc. Our 100+ integrations allow restaurateurs to manage and interact with all these players from a single screen”.

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Petpooja’s software currently supports over 25,000 outlets across India, UAE, and Africa, with over 1.5 million daily orders logged on the platform recording an annualised GMV of $2.5 billion, cliams the startup.

“The pandemic has been a watershed moment for the food service industry as on the one hand consumers demanded digital touchpoints while on the other hand margins were under severe stress. Given the current industry outlook and the evolution, large scale technology adoption is imperative to increase the efficiency of operations, control pilferage, manage online channels and keep costs under control," said Amod Malviya, Co-founder, Udaan.

"In our journey to empower and digitise SMEs across India, it was inspiring to witness how Petpooja's founders & team were doing the same for restaurants. Looking at the current growth momentum, I am confident that the fresh round of funding will give the team more firepower to invest in building capabilities and achieve exponential growth in the coming years,” he added.

Last year, B2B ecommerce platform Udaan made an infusion of Rs 14 crore (or approximately $2 million) in PetPooja, showed company filings with the MCA.

Speaking on the funding, Gaurav Gulati, Head and CIO, Aroa Ventures, said,

“After more than a year of living under COVID-19 induced lockdowns and restrictions, the foodservice industry is getting back on track. Now, more than ever, restaurateurs need to take advantage of a product like Petpooja to seamlessly handle their operations and order management tasks. F&B outlets using Petpooja’s AI-driven solutions and analytics have consistently outperformed their peers. We strongly believe in Petpooja’s vision to digitally transform restaurant operations and to drive profitability for restaurant owners.”