Delhi's Kitchens Centre raises funds from Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos-backed Village Global

Delhi-based shared kitchen startup Kitchens Centre has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a Pre Series A round from early stage venture capital firm Village Global, which is backed by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Eric Schmidt.

The funds raised will be used for scaling up operations and expanding into newer markets in India. Kitchens Centre is currently operating over 35 ready-to-move-in kitchens across 15 cities for food and FMCG brands.

Founded in 2019 by Lakshay Jain, Kitchens Centre is a shared kitchen startup that provides infrastructure and technology solutions and more to online food and FMCG brands. With the approach of building ready-to-move-in kitchens, Kitchens Centre offers key benefits to brand partners with the fully fitted kitchen.

The company earlier raised $500,000 in seed round from AngelList India.

"Kitchens Centre is providing a dedicated and sustainable solution for businesses to grow and produce a high order volume and sales. With the obvious benefit being the reduction of cost, we also aim to create an incubated ecosystem with integrated tech solutions, supply chain, logistics support and platform aggregation. Moreover with the COVID-19 pandemic still very much prevalent, the food delivery business is prospering and gaining momentum in the food services industry," said Lakshay Jain, founder, Kitchens Centre.

The startup started operations with two locations in Delhi and over the course of one year it has expanded to over 35 locations across 15 cities across India.

The company works with over 50 food and beverages brands like Choko La, Mamagoto, Biryani Blues, Sleepy Owl, Cross Border Kitchen, The Masala Story by Punjabi by Nature, Fat Lulu's, Nirula's, and Maalgaadi by Dhaba Estd 1986, among others.

The company is planning to expand further by adding more than 90 new locations and 550 units over the next one year. Currently, the startup is managing 100,000 sq. ft space with 50 team members.

“Kitchens Centre's data-driven approach to property acquisition and sales management ensures maximisation of occupancy and unit economics. They consider various idiosyncratic factors such as cuisine share/gap, composition of user cohorts and associated AOV etc to target a specific location within a city. India is one of the largest and fastest growing F&B consumption markets and Kitchens Centre is rightly placed to address a market gap. It is enabling restaurants, food entrepreneurs as well as FMCG brands to take advantage of the boom in delivery/logistics and achieve higher ROI - minimal capital outlay and faster go-to-market. We see significant investment opportunities in this ecosystem," said Erik Torenberg, Co-founder, Village Global.

As food delivery is expected to outpace dining/at-restaurant sales in the next 9-12 months, Kitchens Centre is aspiring to partner with many more restaurants and food-tech startups to accelerate their growth story.

This concept is finding a lot of traction in the global markets as well with companies such as Virtual Kitchen (USA), Karma Kitchen (UK), and Zuul (USA) having raised significant growth capital.

Original Source: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/delhis-kitchens-centre-raises-funds-from-mark-zuckerberg-jeff-bezos-backed-village-global-6137091.html