Backed by Sequoia Capital, Mumbai-based Rebel Foods received a $125 million injection from Coatue Management, Goldman Sachs, the Indonesian delivery service Gojek and others, as per ET reports.
Rebel Foods says its 235 kitchens in 20 cities, mostly located in industrial complexes, produce 2 million orders a month.
Founded by a McKinsey & Co. alumnus named Jaydeep Barman, Rebel Foods serves a dozen different menus with everything from cheese-loaded Italian pizzas to 99 variants of the dosa, a popular south Indian dish.
Rebel Foods calls itself the World’s Largest Internet Restaurant Company, a brag that’s hard to disprove because there aren’t many chains quite like it.
When Indian diners order biryani online from Rebel Foods they’re greeted with a appetizing history of the fragrant, slow-cooked rice dish.
“The recipe was lost forever when King Cyrus laid siege to Behrouz until it was discovered amongst the ruins,” the story reads in part.
“With this Biryani, we have brought back to life this lost recipe.” Diners are invited to read the entire account, which extends to 14 chapters and describes a protracted war between two ancient Persian kingdoms.
The whole thing is made up—a canny exercise in myth-making that has helped turn the meal (named Behrouz after the fictional conflict) into a top-seller and the first branded version of India’s unofficial national dish.
All of the food is cooked in more than 200 cloud kitchens, so-called because these centralized operations serve widespread customers who have no idea where their food is coming from, much like cloud computing services.
It’s become the go-to business model for food delivery companies looking to side-step the costs of running traditional restaurants with seating and wait staff.
Backed by Sequoia Capital, Mumbai-based Rebel Foods in July received a $125 million funding from Coatue Management, Goldman Sachs, the Indonesian delivery service Gojek and others.
The company, which is valued at $525 million, says it more than doubled sales last year and is now planning to expand into Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Over the next one and half years, Rebel Foods and Gojek will build 100 Indonesian cloud kitchens dishing out biryani, pizza, Chinese food and local fave Nasi Goreng. Rebel Foods plans to open 20 kitchens in the UAE by year-end.
By: Abhinav Ranjan, Editorial Desk, DKODING Media
