Licious: Case Study, Company Profile, Founding Team, and Many More

Introduction:

In addition to ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat goods, the online store Licious also sells meat and fish. Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta founded it in 2015; it is run by Delightful Gourmet Private Limited, with offices in Bangalore. Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta first met for meals when the storey starts.

Both individuals enjoyed eating meat and once talked about the possibility of selling it online. At first, they did the meat deliveries themselves, but they quickly recognised that this wasn’t working because there were no customers and money was being lost daily.

Company Highlights:

Company Name	Licious
Headquarter	Bengaluru, India
Industry	E-commerce and Food & Beverage
Founded	2015
Founder	Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura
Website	https://www.licious.in/

Licious About:

The meat and seafood brand Licious is established in Bengaluru. The business offers the greatest, most pristine fish, chicken, beef, and eggs online. It uses a farm to fork business model and controls the entire back-end supply chain as well as the cold chain. Additionally, their app has a dedicated recipe section. It enables users to prepare delectable meals.

Also instructs in the unusual chef’s manner. It runs in the following cities: Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi-NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Coimbatore, Pondicherry, Jaipur, Kochi, Vizag, Kolkata, and Vijayawada.

Industry:

In Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Gurugram, it has three processing facilities. Owning the complete back-end supply chain and cold chain, it runs on a farm-to-fork business model. Funding for Licious has come from a number of sources, including Mohandas Pai, Mayfield Capital, Vertex Growth Fund, UCLA, Sistema Asia Fund, and InnoVen Capital.

Founder & Team:

It was founded by Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura. Licious’ co-founder is Vivek Gupta. As a Corporate Finance Manager for Tavant Technologies, he began his career. The other co-founder of Licious is Abhay Hanjura. He is a Hindu pandit from Kashmir and served as Infosys’ campus ambassador. In 2015, they started the business.

Startup Story:

Abhay Hanjura approached Vivek Gupta, who was then employed at Helion Ventures, to examine the possibility of delivering fresh meat and seafood in India. Even though 73 percent of Indians consume meat and fish, the sector is very unstructured. The only brand of food that meat is excluded from in an average Indian household’s consumption is that of dairy (well, almost).

An unclean local market, filth, stink, and a bad shopping experience are typical images that come to mind when thinking about India’s fresh meat and seafood business, which is unorganised to a greater than 95% extent. The pair aimed to alter how Indians view meat.

Abhay and Vivek were talking about the company idea over lunch. They were consuming extremely subpar chicken. Abhay Hanjura chose to leave his well-paying position at an insurance brokerage company in order to pursue this notion of altering how meat is obtained, processed, and marketed in India.

Mission & Vision:

Hanjura’s family, who were strict vegetarians, threatened to abandon him after hearing this since they couldn’t bear the thought of him eating meat. They didn’t decide to prevent Abhay from meeting Vivek, but as a result, we now have Licious, the unicorn online meat provider, from which we can get meat and seafood whenever we want.

With an unrivalled selection of meat and meat products, Licians will create the most adored meat brand in the world!

Name & Logo:

Of the time, Adithya Kote, the creative director at Cafe Coffee Day Group, was just beginning to interact with Vivek and Abhay. After considering more than 300 name options for the brand, the two settled on “Licious,” which is actually derived from the word “delicious,” as the name. When asked about why he kept the term “Licious” for his company, Abhay responded, “We wanted to name our company something that appeals to people’s emotions. Being a full meat brand was our goal.

On June 3, 2022, Licious switched from its previous logo to a new one. The well-known meat company revamped its brand identification by launching a new logo along with a new colour palette. Three colors—smoky grey, hearty red, and creamy white—dominate as we move along the new logo. To revive the lusciousness connected to meat, this new logo is being introduced.

Business Model:

It uses a farm to fork business approach. The business manages the entire supply chain. The corporation is ultimately responsible for everything, from product sourcing through processing and storage to delivery to the consumer. To cut out the middlemen and take full control of sourcing, processing, and marketing, it appears that the firm has taken a page from Amul’s playbook.

According to Licious, its own farms produce 50% of the meat that the firm sells, growing from 10% in 2020. It also owns facilities for processing and distribution. From the very first day, it began to dispel the stigma associated with meat. Licious marketed meat in organised cartons, leak-proof pouches, and containers rather than black plastic bags.

Revenue Model:

Sales of Licious’ meat, seafood, marinades, and eggs account for a sizable portion of its earnings. The remaining income is generated through the provision of the products and other connected services. To present, it has been successful in acquiring more than 1 million distinct consumers. The typical basket is 700 INR in size. The business made 1.47 crores of Indian rupees in income in its first year. The total amount of money received in FY2019–20 was INR 131.8 crore.

Licious’ operating revenue increased by 3.2X from Rs 131.8 crore in FY20 to Rs 420.3 crore in FY21. Sales of its fresh meat, fish, and seafood items, marinades, and eggs accounted for approximately 97.2% of its total sales. Deliveries and other related services accounted for the remaining percentage of company revenues. The company’s EBITDA margins improved dramatically during FY21, going from -95.12 percent to -43.31 percent, although Licious’ losses grew by another 153% to Rs 370 cr. It claimed earning Rs. 69.4 crore in revenue for FY19.

As Licious’ income increased from Rs 283.8 crore in FY20 to Rs 646.5 crore in FY21, so did its expenses. It spent Rs 148.5 crore in fiscal year 2019. Despite dropping to Rs 146.3 crore in FY20 from Rs 438.7 crore in FY19, the Licious losses increased once more to reach Rs 370 crore in FY21.

Products & Services:

From Licious, customers can purchase chicken, mutton, seafood (fish, prawns, and crabs), marinades, and cold cuts.

Funding & Investors:

Including the most recent investment round, which was led by Amansa Capital, Kotak PE, Axis Growth, and others on March 15, 2022, and in which the investors invested $150 mn, Licious has raised a total of $488.3 million. With the addition of this fundraising round, it has become the highest valued D2C business in India, with a valuation believed to be about $2 bn. It joins the likes of Lenskart, The Good Glamm Club FirstCry, and others in this group.

By leading the last round of funding for Licious, IIFL AMC’s Late Stage Tech Fund helped the company reach a valuation of $1 billion as of October 5, 2021. With this investment, it became the 29th Indian unicorn in 2021 and the first unicorn startup in the direct-to-consumer market.

TV Mohandas Pai, Vertex Growth Fund, Nichirei Corp, 3one4 Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, UCLA, Sistema Asia Fund, Mayfield Capital, Korea-based Neoplux Technology Fund, and Innoven Capital are a few of the investors in the business. Brunei Investment Agency and Multiples Alternate Asset Management were the newest investors in the Series F round of funding.

It has only ever made one investment. On April 27, 2022, Licious made its first investment, investing over $1 million in Pawfectly Made. Additionally, Licious joined as a strategic partner of the pet food firm situated in Bengaluru.

Date	Transaction Name	Money Raised	Lead Investors
March 15, 2022	Series F	$150 million	Amansa Capital, Kotak PE, Axis Growth and more.
October 5, 2021	Series F	$52 million	IIFL
June 11, 2021	Series F round	$192 million	Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Brunei Investment Agency, Vertex Ventures
December 16, 2019	Series E	$30 million	Vertex Growth Fund, 3one4 Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, Nichirei Corp, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India, Sistema Asia Fund
December 10, 2018	Series D	$25 million	Nichirin, 3one4 Capital, Bertelsmann India Investment, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India, UCLA, Sistema Asia Fund
September 26, 2018	Series C	$25 million	Bertelsmann India Investments and Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India (part of the Vertex Holdings network of funds). The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), also invested in the company along with existing investors Mayfield India, 3one4 Capital, Sistema Asia Fund, InnoVen Capital
March 29, 2017	Series B	$10 million	3one4 Capital and Mayfield Fund Sistema Asia Fund, Neoplux Technology fund
April 21, 2016	Series A	$3.5 million	Mayfield Fund, 3one4 Capital
September 24, 2015	Seed Round	$1 million	T.V. Mohandas Pai, Manipal Global Education Services, entrepreneur Kanwaljit Singh

Employees:

Over 3500 people that are actively employed by the company are listed on Licious.

Challenges Faced:

Even before Licious was introduced, there were difficulties from the beginning. Abhay Hanjura, a Jammu native and member of a family of Kashmiri pandits, faced opposition from his family, who are strict vegetarians, when he tried to move through with one of his business ideas including meat. Things outside of Abhay’s home got so terrible that the firm, which was launched in a nation that ranks No. 4 in the world for meat production, had to suspend operations on the first day of operation.

Deliveries made by the company were all delayed. Although the brand sought a high-quality product solution, they did not put as much effort into their supply chain management. For this reason, it took Licious 15–20 extra days to resume operations.

• The increase in the number of rivals and the level of competitiveness in the online meat market.
• Infectious outbreaks in animals.
• The increase in meat alternatives.
• The costs associated with handling smaller purchases.
• A consumer’s preference is to get meat from a local butcher.

Acquisitions:

It raises $150 million to use for technological investments and tactical acquisitions.

Growth:

In the previous year, the company’s growth was 500 percent, and it has kept up its momentum. The ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat product categories considerably increased sales even though all product categories experienced increases. Products like the kebab range and chicken spreads became popular, and new offerings like tandoori products are also gaining fast traction. It is widely acknowledged that Licious is the dominant player in this market.

According to Licious, two million orders have currently been delivered to distinct clients. Additionally, each consumer’s average basket size increased by 30%. Ninety percent of customers continue to use the company’s services again. In addition, It is proud of the fact that in the previous year, it successfully supplied over 2 million different consumers.

Partners:

There is no details of it.

Competitors:

Top rivals of Licious include:

• FreshToHome.
• ZappFresh.
• Captain Fresh.
• TenderCuts.
• Freshtohome.
• Jumbotail.
• Spice Story.
• FreshR.
• Blinkit.
• Satvacart.

Awards & Achievements:

• One of the top 12 rising startups in 2016 according to CB Insights.
• Listed in 2017’s SuperStartups Asia.
• In 2018, BW Disrupt included Licious in its list of the 40 under 40.
• The creators of Licious were listed among the 50 Most Influential Indians by GQ India.
• In 2018, the business received the FSSC22000 UKAS accreditation.
• One of the Most Innovative Startups in 2018 according to INC42 was Licious.
• It was spotted by Entrepreneur Magazine in its 2019 list of the 35 Under 35.
• In 2019, It was listed among Fortune’s 40 Under 40.
• The same year that it made BW’s list of the 35 Under 35 artists.
• In the category of Small & Medium Manufacturing Food Businesses -Rising Star – Meat & Poultry in 2019, it won the CII_ Outstanding Performance in Food Safety Award.
• In 2019, Licious Spreads won the Frost & Sullivan Innovation Award.
• It was named one of the Most Promising Business Leaders in Asia in 2019 by the Economic Times.
• According to Entrepreneur Magazine, it was the 2020 Food & Beverage Start-up of the Year.

Future Plan:

Over 2020 and 2021, Licious’ footprints greatly grew. Licious once served 14 markets in India, including Bangalore, Hyderabad, NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Kochi, Puducherry, Vizag, and Vijayawada. It currently serves 16 cities. It will continue to spread to more than 10 Indian cities during the coming year. Additionally, a future global expansion is anticipated.

FAQs :

What does Licious do?

In addition to ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat goods, the online store Licious also sells meat and fish. Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta founded it in 2015; it is run by Delightful Gourmet Private Limited, with offices in Bangalore.

When was Licious founded?

It was established in 2015.

Who is the founder of Licious Corporation?

The founders are Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura.

Who is the CEO of Licious Corporation?

A CEO is Shradha Sharma.

Who are the main competitors of Licious?

Top 10 Licious competitors

• Captain Fresh.
• TenderCuts.
• Freshtohome.
• Jumbotail.
• Spice Story.
• FreshR.
• Blinkit.
• Satvacart.

How fast does Licious deliver?

We’re available 7 days a week, Monday to Sunday from 6:00 AM to 11:00 PM. How long does it take to deliver my order? Express Delivery orders will be delivered within 120/90 minutes basis your city. Scheduled Delivery orders will be delivered according to the time slot selected by you.

Which cities are served by Licious?

The company operates on a farm-to-fork model, owning the entire back-end supply chain and cold chain. It operates in 28 Indian cities including, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, Noida, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Kochi, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Pondicherry and Kolkata.

Where does Licious chicken come from?

It is a Bengaluru-based meat and seafood brand.

What technology does Licious use?

Licious uses 39 technology products and services including HTML5 , jQuery , and Google Analytics , according to G2 Stack. it is actively using 90 technologies for its website, according to BuiltWith. These include IPhone / Mobile Compatible , Viewport Meta , and SPF .

How many customers does Licious have?

Spread across 14 cities, the company said its annual revenue run rate is around Rs. 1000 crore, and it recorded over 500% growth during the last year. It has delivered to more than two million unique customers till date with over 90% repeat customers.

Conclusion:

Licious is unique in its ability to offer fresh, chilled meat all the time thanks to a number of in-house algorithms that are working to find solutions. In order to achieve the ideal balance between ensuring availability and controlling wastage, it has even gone so far as to develop technology tools to aid in anticipating consumer behaviour.

With the most cutting-edge technologies, it continually sets itself apart. This finally motivated them to use Branch’s mobile martech solutions to transform the way that meat and seafood are delivered in India. Let’s investigate how this is feasible in more detail.