YumLane Raises Seed Round of Under $1M from Binny Bansal, Anupam Mittal and Others

In today’s fast-paced life people have no time to wait. They want everything in a jiffy, especially food options that can be consumed on the move. Identifying this need, YumLane has created a new ‘Food-to-go’ category to provide modern day busy Indians with reliable and quick food alternatives at affordable price points. Currently, there are hardly any options available for on-the-go hot snacking and meal that are quick-to-serve, affordable and most importantly hygienic to consume.

YumLane, the digital FMCG Food startup has received the seed funding of just under USD 1 million by renowned angel investors. The investors in the current round include Binny Bansal, Anupam Mittal, Sachin Bhatia, Katalyzers (managed by SMILE Partners), Darius Pandole, Kunal Khattar, Rajnish Taneja and Dheeraj Jain.

Founded by Hitesh Ahuja, Ex - VP from New Silk Route PE and MBA from SP Jain, the team includes Rueben Ghosh (Co-founder Product, Le Cordon Bleu), Rahul Kumar (Co-founder Tech, IIT-B) and Anirudh Mantri (VP, Ops IIT-B). The preservative free food that’s made with natural ingredients is ready to be consumed anywhere, anytime.

Talking about the fund raise, Hitesh says “We would like to make great food accessible to everyone, everywhere and leverage the deeply fragmented retail landscape our country offers. The Company plans to use the investment towards brand building, marketing initiatives and increasing the footprint.”

The branded FMCG market is expected to be USD 65B by 2020 as per BCG report in Dec 2015 titled ‘Reimagining FMCG in India’ and estimates suggest USD 15B market for street food and snacks.

India has 11 shops per 1000 people, with 14 million retailers it has the largest number of retailers in the world. Out of these, approximately 9 million are FMCG retailers and the distribution network of established FMCG brands such as HUL, ITC, Coke ranges between 4 to 6 million retail points. YumLane aims to capture nearly the entire FMCG retail universe to make its offering easily accessible.

Also, in a market where people are increasingly growing conscious of untrustworthy street food and the boring fast food joints, a brand like YumLane might just get embraced whole heartedly.