Twigly, an International food ordering startup has raised $600,000 in seed funding from Tracxn Labs, Hyderabad Angels, Kunal Shah (co‐founder, FreeCharge), Aditya Verma, (co‐founder, Makaan.com), Gaurav Bhalotia (Vice‐president of Engineering, Flipkart), and partners at McKinsey.
Operational in the Delhi‐NCR region, Twigly provides gourmet sandwiches at affordable prices. The food tech startup that aspires to form a chain of brands across cuisines and formats, and believes good food and convenience should not be a trade‐off in delivered food. The startup will use the funds for top of the funnel marketing, expansion to Delhi and Bangalore. It is building a modern‐day food supply chain that's anchored around freshness, instead of frozen foods with a long shelf life (as used extensively by MNC food chains like Subway, McDonalds, KFC). Most of the Quick service restaurant (QSR) chains in India are slow to read the market or are in bad shape as they are scaling a business model that is dated 30‐40 years ago in the US. These formats are already getting challenged by chains such as Shake Shack, Sprig, Chipotle in the US. Twigly’s focus on freshness and technology provides a fantastic customer experience through great quality food, timeliness in delivery, and a simple ordering process.
"We are investing in creating a world class team at Twigly, to truly create an Indian Food inc.” says co‐founder Sonal Minhas. Each of the team members here are being groomed to lead individual brands in the portfolio. "The experience in the last 7 months has shown us that we have just scratched the surface of what operations and technology can do in providing great experiences. We continue to do all this in a profitable manner. We are both profitable at the unit level and for our first base,” he adds.
Food ordering is currently broken, right from order placement, food preparation, to delivery. Food MNCs in India are either slow‐moving, or are struggling due to high rental costs of their dine‐in areas. As food prepared by most traditional food chains and restaurants is meant for dine‐in customers, and becomes soggy for a delivery customer. Twigly’s recipes and menu, offering a selection of sandwiches, rice‐curries, pastas, salads, shakes and smoothies, are designed such that delivery customers have a great experience at their home or at their office desk.By keeping costs low, Twigly is able to focus on its operations and technology to ensure that the food ordering experience is seamless and consistent.
The company aims to scale to $100 million in sales in the next 7‐8 years. For its customers, Twigly is creating personalized user experiences based on its customers eating habits and choices. Examples include ‘Slick’ ‐ Single click ordering of Twigly’s sandwich of the day, and one‐click online payment through Twigly’s apps, available for iOS and Android devices.
Says co‐founder Naresh Kachhi, "Twigly has a lot of focus on user convenience be it ordering, tracking or reaching us for feedback. Technology has made sure that each user has a great ordering experience. Our “Slick” (Single click ordering) is a great example of this. You will be see many more such features from Twigly, which will make the app a necessity, and not just another food ordering app. For the backend, our ops and tech teams work hand in hand, we are solving daily operational problem with tech, to make an effective and error‐free system as it scales.”
Twigly helps consumers by customizing its menu based on eating habits. It has invested in infrastructure and developed checks to maintain a high standard for its food in terms of taste, hygiene and delivery experience, ensuring high customer loyalty. In just 7 months, Twigly has created a loyal base of 6,000 customers that is growing daily. Customers order 5‐6 times a month, on average. Its app has a 4.9 rating on Google Play Store, was rated 4.6 on Zomato, was included in the Top 10 apps Made in India, and has been rated as the best delivery place to eat from in Gurgaon.
"We’re building an iconic brand that people love associating themselves with. We’ve already gotten requests to open across India (Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad) as the word spreads, and we’re working day‐and‐night to grow Twigly without compromising on our core values of quality and customer‐focus,” says co‐founder Rohan Dayal.
In parallel, Twigly is also working on a line of higher shelf‐life products for modern retail and FMCG. Twigly’s founders are putting together a high potential team that can manage its ambitious plans for geographical growth and additions to its product lines.
