Agricultural technology startup Gourmet Garden has raised a fresh investment round from Incubate Fund India and Whiteboard Capital.
Gourmet Garden was founded by Arjun Balaji, a former partner at McKinsey, and Vishal Narayanaswamy, who after consulting and startup stints overseas, came back to India to launch among hydroponic farms. The company follows a patented Naturoponic farming approach. Currently, more than 17,000 households are customers of Gourmet Garden in Bangalore with over 70% of revenue coming from repeat customers.
Arjun Balaji, founder, Gourmet Garden said, “Given the delicate and perishable nature of veggies, we realised that consistently high quality and safety cannot be delivered through just direct sourcing from farmers or by offering delivery services to consumers. It requires farming approaches that yield significantly higher source quality, and an F&V centric supply op that is radically lean and just-in-time.”
Nao Murakami, founder at Incubate Fund India said, “Indian consumers are rapidly becoming more conscious about the quality and safety of food but there are no trusted home-grown F&V brands available in India. At the same time, farmers struggle to manage the variabilities in quality, yield, and access to markets. Gourmet Garden’s propositions are beneficial to both sides of the supply chain.”
“Gourmet Garden plugs into a very important consumer need, especially in the post-Covid world, where quality and traceability of fresh produce isn’t a luxury anymore,” said Anshu Prasher, General Partner, Whiteboard Capital.
With the help of the new funding, Gourmet Garden plans to expand to Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi, it further plans to scale up its team, and leverage tech and automation for business operations with the freshly raised capital.