Gaja Capital Invests In Massive Restaurant

Mid-market private equity firm Gaja Capital has invested Rs 160 crore in premium dining platform Massive Restaurants owned by celebrity food chef Jiggs Kalra and his son Zorawar Kalra. This is the seventh investment for the Mumbai-based investor through its third fund of $240 million.

The round will see Gaja Capital pick a significant minority stake in the company with the promoters retaining their majority stake, according to people aware of the development.

Gaja Capital Managing Partner gopal Jain said “We have picked the premium dining route as our bet in the F&B space. We see premium dining as an opportunity of scale and we have chosen to be on the front end with Massive Restaurants. On the other hand in the QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) space we have chosen the supply chain B2B route with Baker’s Circle. We have been able to demonstrate that not only has Gaja Capital managed exits but also delivered handsome returns on its investments. The venture capital ecosystem where thousands of ventures have been created and funded has created a strong pipeline for us. We are keen to carry forward our 2017 pace of investments into the next year”.

Massive Restaurants will use a majority of the capital to fuel its international expansion and is already on track to launch eight restaurants across 14 countries in the next couple of quarters.

Zorawar Kalra, MD of Massive Restaurants said “We have tasted great success in the Indian market and hence our investments are now geared towards building our international portfolio in Middle East, London and the US. Our growth strategy for restaurant expansion will be in the 2:1 ratio in favour of India, in the long term.”

The investment in Massive Restaurants is Gaja Capital’s fifth bet in 2017, a landmark year for the private equity firm which has scored 3 exits through stake sales in TeamLease, CL Educate and John Distilleries.

Gaja Capital originally invested Rs 75 crore for a 25% stake in TeamLease through 2010 and 2011 and Rs 78 crore in CL Educate first in 2007. The PE firm is reported to have raked in returns worth 10 times and 2-3 times respectively on those investments, with an additional 4x return on its investment in John Distilleries through a partial stake sale to Sazerac in October this year.