Rebel Foods Eyes New Round of Funding, targets $1 BN Valuation

Rebel Foods that runs cloud kitchens like Faasos, Oven Story Pizza and Behrouz Biryani, is eyeing a valuation of about $1 billion as it is eyeing a new round of funding of $100-150 million.

Rebel runs more than dozen virtual restaurant brands where it sells directly through its own application besides platforms like Zomato and Swiggy. The new funding follows less than six months after the Mumbai-based company raised its previous round of $125 million, which valued it at $525 million.

The contours of the deal are still being discussed and the numbers could change.

The fresh round could see existing backer Coatue Management — a US-based hedge fund — invest about $50 million, while the remaining capital is raised from other new and existing investors. Financial services major Goldman Sachs and Indonesian ride-hailing giant Gojek were some of the other new investors in Rebel, while its early backers include Sequoia Capital India and Lightbox Ventures.

Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund has also recently expressed interest in the company again, though it is not clear if those talks have progressed. SoftBank had also held discussions with Rebel last year.

Online food ordering space is one of the paragons in the internet led business space. Funding in the food tech space has grown by 35x in the last five years, shares a BCG- Google report. Macro trends such as rising internet penetration, increasing ordering frequency, favorable consumer disposition, expanding reach in smaller tiers and expanding network of restaurants on Food Tech platforms pan India, continue to drive momentum in the industry.

Rebel has witnessed tremendous growth over the last few years. The company is expected to close the year ending March 2020 with total revenues of Rs 600-650 crore and is currently doing monthly revenues of Rs 75 crore.

Rebel is currently running over 325 cloud kitchens across India and has also started overseas expansion into Southeast Asia, Middle East and Europe.