India’s FreshToHome raises $20M to grow its fish, meat, vegetable, and milk e-commerce platform

FreshToHome, a Bangalore-based e-commerce startup that sells fresh vegetable, fish, chicken, and other kinds of meat, has raised $20 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand its footprint in the nation.

The Series B round for the startup was led by Iron Pillar, with Joe Hirao, the founder of Japan’s ZIGExn also participating in the round. The startup, which closed its $11 million Series A financing round three months ago, has raised $33 million to date.

FreshToHome sells “100 percent” pure and fresh — it adds no preservative or any other chemicals — vegetables and meat in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune — the latter two of which it recently entered. Unlike most other marketplaces, FreshToHome has built its own supply chain network, giving it better control over delivery.

The startup sources vegetables and fish directly from 1500 fishermen and farmers across 125 coasts in the nation.

As a result of this, FreshToHome is able to deliver the perishables on the same day and as soon as up to two hours, Shan Kadavil, CEO of FreshToHome, told TechCrunch in an interview. The startup also began operations in UAE recently.

FreshToHome has amassed 650,000 customers — up from 400,000 in late May — in 10 cities in India and recently started to sell milk in Bangalore, another market segment that remains largely unstructured in the nation. Every day it receives 14,000 orders, and processes 20 tons of fresh food.

It recently crossed $30 million in annualized direct to consumer sales, which makes it the largest e-commerce platform operating in this space. It is seeing 30% month-to-month growth, said Kadavil, who has previously managed tech support for Support, and India operations for gaming firm Zynga.

And that growth has helped the startup attract some attention. Several major players in the nation, including Amazon India and Flipkart that have recently expanded to include perishable category, has held talks with FreshToHome to acquire a stake in the startup, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

And there is a big opportunity in the space. The cold-chain market of India is estimated to grow to $37 billion in next five years.

In addition to directly procuring its supplies from farmers and fishermen, FreshToHome also serves as a micro-VC to them, giving them access to some money upfront and helping them produce more from their farms.

Kadavil founded the FreshToHome with Mathew Joseph, a veteran in the industry who has dealt with fish export for more than 30 years. Joseph started India’s first e-commerce venture in fish and meat called SeaToHome in 2012.

More to follow…