QSR Startup Charcoal Eats Raises Rs 5 Cr in Pre-Series A Funding

Tech-enabled, full stack QSR startup Charcoal Eats has raised Rs 5 crore in Pre-Series A round of funding led by HNI investors such as Rajesh Ramanathan - Head Global Growth Mondelez, Kush Verma - Asoka Capital, Sanjay Bhandarkar - Rothschild, Amit Gupta - New Quest Capital Partners, Vishesh Shrivastav - Temasek, Sachin Khivasara - Bouyant Capital, Chetan Mehrotra. With this round, total funds raised by Charcoal Eats since inception becomes Rs 12 crore.

The funding will allow Charcoal Eats to increase its footprint across new geographies as well as consolidate its presence in existing markets and invest in customer acquisition and brand building. Charcoal Eats currently operates 22 outlets across 6 Indian cities - Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Delhi-NCR, Nashik. By December 2018, Charcoal Eats is targeting to have 60 plus outlets spread across 10 cities.

Anurag Mehrotra, Co-founder & CEO of Charcoal Eats said, “In the last 2 years, we have served over half a million customers and enjoy a high customer satisfaction, resulting in repeat business of over 50%. The new investment reiterates our commitment towards building a sustainable and scalable Indian QSR offering consistent quality across the country.”

Charcoal Eats offers high quality, all-day food options across snack and meal times, at various price points. Customers can dine-in, take-away or order for delivery, as per their convenience. The offerings include a wide array of Biryanis, Rolls, Loaded Fries, Starters, Puff Pizzas, Beverages & Desserts.

In addition to walking in to the outlets, customers can access Charcoal Eats directly via its app, website or customer care number. Charcoal Eats is also available on all leading food platforms such as Zomato, Swiggy, Foodpanda, Dine Out, etc. Corporate executives will soon be able to pay for their Charcoal Eats orders with their Sodexo and Ticket Restaurant cards.

The market for chain restaurants including cafes and quick service restaurants (QSR) is expected to grow at 20 per cent a year to reach Rs 51,000 crore ($8bn) by 2021, a recent report by the India Food Services Report by National Restaurant Association of India said.

Other Indian startups who are operating in this segment are Roll Mafia, Box8 and 48East among others.