Winning without VC money: The secret sauce behind Pizza Bakery and Paris Panini’s success

“You cannot throw money at F&B and make it work,” says Abhijit Gupta, Co-founder of Popo Ventures, the company that runs Bengaluru-based buzzed brands—Pizza Bakery, Paris Panini, and the most recently opened Smash Guys—without having raised a single penny from venture capital. 

Not that he is averse to capital, but he prefers to keep away from VC money, which comes with strings attached. 

“Good brands have raised money and ruined their own product by getting investors to pressurise them. Investors expect ROI (return-on-investment), and I can’t blame them,” says Abhijit, who is known as AB in the food industry. 

He learnt these lessons through experience, while running Pizza Bakery and Paris Panini—two popular food establishments in Bengaluru, known for their gourmet offerings and ambience. 

Abhijit, along with his brother, Nikhil, started Pizza Bakery “by chance” in 2017.  He was managing his family travel agency Travel Bazar, while Nikhil was working with his father-in-law in a car dealership business, Akshaya Motors. 

“None of us saw a bright future in what we were doing, we were always looking for other opportunities… And one of those opportunities was F&B,” says Abhijit. 

With plans of getting into a franchise model by partnering with Delhi-based restaurant chain Fat Lulu’s, the Gupta brothers decided to start a “side project for disposable income.” 

Eventually, the deal with Fat Lulu’s fell through, but the duo had already leased out a space at the posh 12th Main Road in Bengaluru’s Indiranagar locality. 

With no other alternatives in mind, they opened their own brand Pizza Bakery—with no prior culinary background, but just a belief in operational common sense and hiring well, and experience from their time in Europe to refer to. 

Pizza Bakery’s first hire was Consultant Chef Abhijit Saha (of Caperberry fame) who helped them in setting up the kitchen and creating the initial menu. 

“I stretched pizzas, my brother was taking orders, my sister-in-law was clearing tables, and my mom did the billing,” recalls Abhijit. 

And then COVID-19 hit. 

The travel business came to a standstill, and the team at Travel Bazar was reduced from 23 to 2. But for their side hustle, the pandemic was the “best thing” to have happened, says Abhijit. 

Pizza Bakery took off due to delivery demand. The brand’s visibility and loyalty grew significantly through online food delivery platforms, eventually leading the brothers to set up multiple cloud kitchens to meet the sudden surge in demand. 

And what began as a side project—the gourmet sourdough pizza—is today synonymous with Pizza Bakery in Bengaluru. 

Pizza Bakery has 10 sit-down outlets and five cloud kitchens across Bengaluru, another cloud kitchen is opening next month in the city. 

Popo Ventures’ other prominent brand, Paris Panini, was launched by chance as well. French chef Nicolas Grossemy operated a food truck to sell French-style sandwiches (paninis). When he was unable to scale the business, he decided to head back to France. 

The Gupta brothers partnered with Grossemy to launch Paris Panini as a sit-down restaurant in a 15-by-25ft passageway that led to Pizza Bakery’s first outlet in Indiranagar. 

Fast forward to 2025, Bengaluru has nine dine-in outlets of Paris Panini, and five cloud kitchens; one more cloud kitchen is in the pipeline. 

For its third brand, Smash Guys, the Gupta brothers partnered with Chef Adithya Kidambi, Co-founder of Mossant Fermentary, and tested the waters for smashed burgers with pop-ups, before launching a full-fledged restaurant, again in Indiranagar. 

All of this happened without raising external funds, and while making profits. 

Popo Ventures made Rs 120 crore in FY2024-25, growing at a CAGR of 45-50%. For the current year, the brand is targeting a topline of Rs 160-plus crore. 

Scaling with substance 

“Brands that will last will be product-focused brands, and people (who sustain) are (those) building experiences around products,” says Abhijit. 

This belief led Popo Ventures to focus on one hero-product for each of its brands—sourdough pizzas at Pizza Bakery, with a side of its famous stuffed garlic bread; sandwiches at Paris Panini; and smash burgers at Smash Guys. 

“Right now it is trendy to get cuisines that’s underserved or unheard of,” he says, citing examples of Peruvian, Iranian, and Parsi food restaurants opening up in the city. 

“I feel these will not last since the demand bucket is not very high. These will help the founder or the chef behind these projects to exercise their passion and give them some fulfillment, but are they scalable? Probably not.” 

Abhijit believes that going forward, in the ever-changing and ever-evolving F&B industry, only one thing will remain constant—people’s love for food. “Ten years from now, people will still be eating biryani, pizzas, sandwiches and burgers. But will people care for some Iranian fad?” 

Being focused on a set of products also helps Popo Ventures have operational efficiency—through shared storage, ingredients, and management staff. This is the reason why Paris Panini co-exists or is in the vicinity of most Pizza Bakery outlets—allowing the company to access shared kitchens and management. 

Overall, the company has recruited close to 750 people. It has a 20,000-sqft central production system in Domlur, which helps maintain quality. Popo Ventures has also invested heavily in technology to maintain quality and consistency, and for real-time inventory alerts. 

“We have a measures checklist… If you go to any pizza topping counter in any of our locations, there are certain measures (for ingredients and toppings)... Similarly, if chicken wings go out of stock in our Yelahanka outlet, I will get notified immediately,” explains Abhijit. 

The team holds five-to-six-hour meetings every Wednesday to discuss the pain-points and challenges for that particular week, ranging from ingredient issues and packaging problems to staff mismanagement. 

However, the real challenge, Abhijit says, is standardising operations and automating processes. “Over the next year, we are investing our time in automation and AI to get more timely, actionable insights,” he says. 

The business of food 

While Bengaluru has an exhaustive list of options for pizzas and sandwiches, these food items are often positioned as ‘fast food’, with not much focus on ingredient quality or presentation. There is a similar trend in burgers too. 

However, Abhijit is of the opinion that ‘gourmet’ sells, and it’s important to bring a gourmet experience to pizzas and burgers. While most burger places mimic fast-food chains, Smash Guys, much like Pizza Bakery and Paris Panini, offers dine-in experience with a focus on plating, ambience and gourmet touches. 

The Smash Guys team has managed to do this by travelling across Dubai, London and New York, and trying more than 100 different burgers to get the right combination of bun, meat and sauce. 

“If there was a degree for smash burgers, I’d be the only one to have it,” Abhijit jokes. 

Despite its growth and success, Popo Ventures doesn’t want to expand far and wide. 

In 2019, the company opened a Pizza Bakery outlet in Colombo, Sri Lanka. However, the business hasn’t been as impressive as it’s in Bengaluru. “We keep it going for as long as it makes sense and hopefully if the (Sri Lanka’s) economy turns around, we want to open more there. But for now, Bengaluru is keeping us busy.”  

Popo Ventures growth philosophy is to saturate the Bengaluru market with all possible opportunities. 

Abhijit attributes the success of all three brands of Popo Ventures to its hands-on and customer-centric approach. The company owns all outlets, and there are no external investors or franchise partners. 

“We don’t sit in an ivory tower… We’re on the floor, with our chefs, customers and staff… We don’t need to show ROI to anyone except ourselves,” says the co-founder. 

Popo Ventures doesn’t open new locations blindly; it tests the waters through cloud kitchens before investing in a physical dine-in space, says Abhijiit. 

Pizza Bakery continues to be the most profitable brand owing to its premium pricing. Whereas Paris Panini, positioned as a premium but more affordable brand, has a lower average order value of around Rs 400.

The early days of Smash Guys appear positive.  

“We are seeing an average spend per head of up to Rs 850 to 900 since we started (a month ago). Smash Guys is on its way to be the number two brand in our portfolio in terms of profitability as we scale it,” says Abhijit. 

Popo Ventures plans to set up two more outlets of Smash Guys in Bengaluru, at Sanjaynagar and Whitefield. 

“If a VC gives me a few million dollars, I can open 20 Smash Guys, but what will happen to the quality? What will happen to the feel of the brand? All that will go for a toss… Right now our focus is on being highly profitable,” Abhijit signs off.