Venture debt firm Alteria Capital is set to make its first investment in ready-to-cook brand Fingerlix, as per reports.
Alteria Capital had previously invested in Byju’s, Swiggy, OYO Rooms, Yatra, Freecharge, Pepperfry, Myntra, Practo and Capillary. The management team at Alteria Capital is eyeing a deployment pace of Rs 300-400 crore in 2018 with the fund looking to invest Rs 2,000 crore in startups over the next four years.
Fingerlix is backed by Accel Partners and Zephyr Peacock and has raised Rs 8.5 crore in its first debt financing exercise. Launched in 2016, Fingerlix sells a range of products including batters, mixes, parathas, snacks, Upma Mix and Biryani Mix. It began delivering in Mumbai and Pune, followed by the national capital region (NCR). Its current plans are that of expanding to Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai.
With this current fundraising exercise, Fingerlix’s funds have risen to Rs 71.5 crore, including equity and debt. The startup is going to use the proceeds to build production capacity for its existing presence in the country’s top six cities.
The firm has a kitchen in Mumbai. Post the investment of Alteria Capital into the startup, the company is planning on opening another kitchen in Delhi and subsequently, one in the Southern market.
Fingerlix will use a portion of the fund to also boost its distribution channel and increase presence in retail and other distribution outlets.
“The investment in Fingerlix represents the ideal type of transaction that we will seek out of a high-quality business with the potential to generate high returns, being driven by a great team and strong investor support,”
Alteria Capital managing partner Ajay Hattangdi said, speaking to Economic Times.
As consumer brands and FMCGs become popular in the Indian startup culture, both equity and debt investors would be interested in making significant portfolios.
“India has been starved of a lot of good quality brands. While we are sector agnostic, the consumer pipeline for Alteria Capital is quite strong and will be evident in the deals to come,”
said Vinod Murali, also a managing partner at the venture debt firm.
Plans for future
As of now, Fingerlix has about 15 SKUs (stock keeping units) with fresh batter forming just shy of 50% of its revenue pie.
However, the startup is looking beyond fresh foods and is ready to invest some of the capital raised in newer products like snacking where it sees a lot of prospects.
In October 2017, Fingerlix was able to sell 6000 units per day and its annual revenues reached up to Rs 12 crore.
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