Deepak S.’s Post

25 flights. 42 investors. 40 rejections. This is the story of the D2C meat and fish company Licious valued at Rs 12,300 crore! 📌Introduction Licious’s founders Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta faced an uphill battle when they set out to revolutionize the meat and seafood industry in India. Their idea of a farm-to-fork model, ensuring quality and hygiene from sourcing to delivery, was met with skepticism by investors. However, their perseverance paid off, and Licious has since transformed the traditionally fragmented and unorganized meat market in India. 📌Business Model The company's business model revolves around end-to-end control of the supply chain. From sourcing from government-approved suppliers and ethical farmers, to state-of-the-art processing plants adhering to strict hygiene standards, to a robust cold chain logistics network, Licious ensures product quality and safety at every step. 📌Role of Technology Technology plays a crucial role in Licious's operations. Customers can seamlessly order through the company's website and mobile app, tracking their orders in real-time. This transparency and reliability have been key factors in gaining consumer trust in a market dominated by traditional wet markets. 📌Challenges Despite challenges such as supply chain management, gaining consumer trust, and navigating regulatory hurdles, Licious has set new standards in the industry, encouraging other players to improve their practices. 📌Expansion After securing significant funding from prominent investors like 3one4 Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, and Vertex Ventures, the company expanded its product portfolio to include ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat items, marinated products, and cold cuts. From its initial base in Bengaluru, Licious now operates in several major Indian cities, with plans to enter more markets. 📌What we can learn from Licious as a startup? From a startup facing numerous rejections to a leading player in the Indian meat and seafood industry, Licious showcases the power of innovation, perseverance, and a commitment to quality. By addressing critical issues in the supply chain and focusing on consumer needs, Licious has not only disrupted the market but also paved the way for a new era of organized retail in the sector. P.S. Repost ♻️and share Licious’s story with your network.

3 #𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 #𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚 𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 #𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 #𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬! 🌟 I know this is a #big #post, but I just couldn’t resist sharing #everything from #one of the most #inspiring #days I’ve had in a while! Yesterday was packed with #energy, #insights, and #amazing #people—and I walked away with lessons I had to pass on. Here’s a quick recap: 🌍 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧 1: 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚’𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 My day kicked off with an #incredible #panel #discussion as part of event #National #Conference on #supply #chain, organized by Delhi Management Association. We dove into how India can lead as a supply chain hub for South Asia, ASEAN, and Africa. Vikas Aggarwal, MCIPS Deepak Thukral Venkat Saddikuti Suman Bose Dr. Navneet Kumar Sharma, IRSS, Ph.D., MBA, ME, BE, MIMA, FIE, FIIMM Dr. Yogesh Misra Ph.D The takeaway? #Partnerships, #resilience, and #collaboration are our greatest tools for making India a trusted global choice. What are your thoughts on India’s next steps in the supply chain space? Drop your insights below! ⬇️ 🌱 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧 2: 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 & 𝐚 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬 I then had my first-ever mentor talk with two inspiring founders: One is transforming the B2B Agri Supply Chain with traceability and transparency at its core. The other is bringing soilless organic farming to urban rooftops and balconies—making fresh greens a reality for city dwellers. Their openness, passion, and humility showed me that a founder’s vision, paired with a learner’s mindset, is an unstoppable force. 1to10 Accelerator by Favcy Favcy Venture Builders Agventure Urban Farming AgriFusion Technologies Private Limited Devarsh Oza @Dapinder Singh In your opinion, what’s the ONE quality every founder should have? 💬 Comment below—I’d love to hear! 🚀 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧 3: 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐔𝐩 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 & 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 To end the day, I facilitated an interactive masterclass on scaling up for rapid growth, covering “must-haves” for sustainable growth: 1. Simon Sinek’s “Why”—knowing why we do what we do fuels our impact. 2. Hiring the right talent that aligns with your vision—the right team can make all the difference. 3. Building a “Zero Loss Risk Mitigation Plan” to support resilience from day one. The energy and ideas exchanged were electric! We all walked away recharged and ready to take on new challenges. Maple Herbs Private Limited SetMyCareer cGreen Homvery WFCN Zadd Bikes MAITYS TruCoco and lot more. And as a perfect end to this day, I caught up with my dear friend Manish Chordia and family—a true powerhouse of energy. His infectious spirit is always a reminder to keep pushing forward. What’s one lesson or mentor moment that’s fueled your growth journey? Share it here or tag someone who’d find these insights valuable. Let’s keep building each other up! 🔥✨ EFESO India

💡 Exploring the Revenue Potential of the Food Service Industry 💡 The food service industry presents a golden opportunity for growth, especially for innovative startups focused on streamlining operations and enhancing efficiency. Here's an intriguing insight: 👉 Monthly Order Value Potential: ₹1,00,000 to ₹1,25,000 👉 Annual Market Opportunity: ₹12,00,000 to ₹15,00,000 per business When we scale these numbers to a larger market: Assuming just 1,000 businesses in the target segment, the market size balloons to ₹120 crore to ₹150 crore annually. For 10,000 businesses, this number skyrockets to ₹1,200 crore to ₹1,500 crore annually! This untapped potential highlights the immense opportunity for startups to disrupt and capture a significant share of this dynamic market. 🚀 Our mission at AgriLinks is to empower food service providers by bridging gaps in the supply chain, offering quality assurance, and delivering cost-effective solutions that maximize value for all stakeholders. 🍽️ Join us in revolutionizing how the food service industry operates, one order at a time! #FoodServiceIndustry #MarketPotential #SupplyChainInnovation #StartupGrowth #BusinessInsights

I had the honor of seeing Shashi Kumar talk through his 14 year journey with Akshayakalpa Organic and his vision for farming (not agriculture) in India. Learnings from Shashi's story are relevant to startup founders in the tech world as well. We are entering a brave new world where founders are creating value based on core beliefs and not on what VCs think is hot. Shashi is a pioneer in this field. That he now has Tier1 VCs on his captable indicates that conviction is contagious. Shashi started his talk by saying - "I started the company thinking I can change agriculture in India, but, along the way, I decided it's more important to change myself". Shashi is driven by a deep rooted belief which is not shared by almost anyone in the #agritech field. He operates with clarity because he has the conviction in his belief. Shashi doesn't agree with the conventional economists' wisdom that India needs to reduce workforce on farms and move the freed up labour to the manufacturing and services sector. He just panned that by asking a straight question - "Who are we to decide that?". In that statement lies the conviction that the future of our civilization rooted in farming is in increasing not decreasing human connection with interconnected Earth. This week was two back to back ecosystem events for me. The week began with the People+ai launch event by Tanuj Bhojwani and Tanvi Lall and ended with the Agribusiness Matters founders retreat by Venky Ramachandran. Most of us attending these events or reading this post are the winners in the current economy. What will it take for us to accept that this economy is not working for the planet? What will take for us to adopt a people-first, earth-first approach like Shashi? I think the answer lies in thinking of entrepreneurship as a spiritual process. If we can't, we will just talk a big empowerment game and end up building businesses that are about capturing users like some of the speakers at the People+AI event were talking about. There has never been a better time to challenge conventional macro-economists' wisdom. They are just plain wrong. More from the same minds will just get us more of the same. Sensibly allocating scarce resources requires knowledge dispersed among many people, with no individual or group of experts (economists) capable of acquiring it all. #AI has the ability to acquire this dispersed knowledge and hence, the governance of AI is going to be the single most important struggle of our lives. If AI is run the way the macro-economists run the economy, we can already start thinking of mechanised large farms feeding industrial scale food processing plants creating products delivered directly to our fridges while we stay plugged into our AR devices. Data is food for AI and eSamudaay is localising and cauterizing data flows. By doing this, we will govern the AI by controlling its food. Time to turn the tables and use the #BigAg playbook on #bigtech. 😁

If ever there was a great year to run a food startup, 2021 was it. In that not-quite-post-pandemic moment, when going on vacation or even out to dinner was still a real risk, few consumer-facing sectors of the economy looked as promising as food: e-grocers, delivery apps and, of course, the food itself. Whatever was happening in the world, investors seemed to reason, people still needed to eat. And, of course, interest rates were near 0%. Things are much more challenging now, but that is actually a good thing. https://lnkd.in/dmrXe3s5

🥇What are the top AgriFoodTech deals? 💰 Investments have bounced back in Q1 2024, and we can see that this has been driven by a couple of mega deals: more than $1B went to these two startups, Picnic Technologies and Wonder. Are megadeals making a comeback in FoodTech? 🍦 Also, it is surprising to see the number of CPG brands in this top 10: Bloom Nutrition, TRUFF, and Liquid Death. That's only three, but normally brands don't make it to a "foodtech top deal" ranking as they tend to raise smaller amounts of money. In our analysis, we are only seeing the first wave of a much larger movement as we observe many exciting brands emerging (mostly in the US and in Europe). 🇺🇸 🇩🇪 Finally, another striking point is that 9 of these top 10 deals are located in the US and in Germany. It will be interesting to see how this evolves over the rest of the year. 🙋♂️ What would be your favourite startup among this top 10? Mine definitely is Oishii! #FoodTech #AgTech #investments

𝗙𝗢𝗢𝗗𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛 𝟱𝟬𝟬: 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗡❗️ 📢 Join the FoodTech Leaders with FoodTech 500! 🚀 Forward Fooding is calling all FoodTech innovators! So don't miss your chance to be a part of the 'Fortune 500' of the AgriFoodTech sector! 📝 Applications are open for the industry's true pioneers. This is your opportunity to shine and be recognized for your extraordinary contributions to the FoodTech world! 🌐 But that's not all! As a FoodTech 500 finalist, you'll gain access to a global network of industry stakeholders, networking, and global visibility, press coverage, propelling your startup to new heights! 📆 Don't wait too long! Early bird applicants who submit their applications by July 31st will benefit from a fast-tracked review process, giving them a head start in the assessment and increasing their chances of being recognized among the most innovative food tech startups. So, seize this incredible opportunity to rank among the top 500 FoodTech companies in the world! 👉 Apply here through the link in the comments 👀 Hope we see you on the list! #foodtech #agrifoodtech #foodtech500 Antonio Iannone Alessio D'Antino Max Leveau Jennibeth Paglinawan Forward Fooding

#Investor In a landscape where climate tech, agrifood innovation, and rural development were once overlooked by venture capital, Omnivore emerged as a pioneer. Founded in 2010 by Jinesh Shah, the firm recognized the immense potential of these sectors and backed a burgeoning community of early-stage entrepreneurs. Today, Omnivore continues to support extraordinary founders driving positive change. Their focus lies in fostering innovations that address pressing global challenges such as food security, climate change, and rural upliftment. By investing in technologies and business models aligned with trends like 'Make in India' and sustainable supply chains. Omnivore is propelling the agri-food industry towards a more sustainable and equitable future. Read the story: https://ow.ly/fWLL50SLS1R Jinesh Shah, Managing Partner of Omnivore #ClimateTech #AgrifoodInnovation #RuralDevelopment #VentureCapital #FoodSecurity #ClimateChange #MakeInIndia #EarlyStageEntrepreneurs #SustainableSupplyChains #AgriFoodIndustry

The 2021 endless VC cash for Food startups is over!! Deena Shanker's fantastic reporting in her article highlights the how the food price increases have dried up big spending, but also shows great new opportunities for independent players. Independent foods companies are only down 1% compared to the almost 7% of the majors. Also great to see that both poppi and Magic Spoon are out competing their big box competitors. One reason I believe is because they took their time to create a brand and become household names in their respective markets. with Magic Spoon it seems that the buyer can smell the inauthenticity from its competitor (cough) kellogs (cough) from miles away. It seems like for now the important thing for Food startups to succeed in 2024 is to make great food, and speak to your people!!! #foodstartups #branding #VC #foodindustry https://lnkd.in/d_e9t9yF

📣 Spotlight on Innovators #2 📣 Did you know that every year close to 50,000 trucks (1.6 million tons) of excess stocks of raw materials from the agri-food industry are incinerated in Europe, even though most of them are still consumable? This shocking statistic led to the birth of Stokelp, in 2021. Envisioned as a "Leboncoin for food manufacturers", the startup is revolutionizing the way food manufacturers buy and resell their excess raw material stocks. Startups like Too Good To Go are helping address the issue of food waste on the consumer side. They allow users to buy unsold items from local shops, restaurants or retailers which are close to getting expired but still good to eat. Stokelp works with a similar model but for the industry. It allows food industrials to sell excess stocks of perishables instead of throwing them out. They can set the price at which they would like to sell (generally 30% below the market price) and the buyers are notified through an alert system about the available produce. Categories they are present in: 🍎 Fruits 🥕 Veggies 🐟 🥩 Seafood and Meat 🌿 Herbs 🥛 Dairy 📦 Packaging 🍳 Catering The co-founders, Tanguy De Cottignies and William Launay have a combined experience of 20 years in the agri-food industry, specializing in supply management. Real results 👩🔬 4739.5 tonnes of CO2 emissions saved 🥦 5737.6 tonnes of raw materials on sale 👩 👨 2.3k+ active users Stokelp raised $3 million in July 2023 in a round led by OneRagtime, Better Angle, AFI Ventures and Rothschild & Co (through their R&Co4Generations foundation) to strengthen its platform and expand operations in Germany. As the saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure". With Stokelp, the surplus stocks find a new purpose, contributing to a more sustainable and efficient agri-food industry 🌱 Here's to Stokelp's journey ahead, filled with growth, innovation, and positive change 💫 #foodwaste #impactinvesting #startups #france #innovation #funding #vc #impact #sustainable