They slayed COVID, went on to build a unicorn: Meet the founders of Licious

Abhay Hanjura & Vivek Gupta, Co-founders, Licious

In April this year, Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, the founders of meat delivery startup Licious were hospitalised and out of action for weeks, as they fought and survived COVID-19. The experience reinforced the importance of building great teams alongside great products. "The month we were in the hospital, by the time we came back, our revenue grew by 25 percent. If you hire great people and inspire them, keep them happy- things just fall in place", Gupta says. His co-founder Hanjura adds, "The summary of that experience is we are not building Licious. Licious is building us."

Even as Hanjura and Gupta have bounced back and made a full recovery, their startup has grown from strength to strength, raising two back-to-back rounds of funding, the latest catapulting it to the unicorn club, as it is now valued at a billion dollars.

Founded in 2015, Licious delivers fresh meat and seafood, apart from ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat products, categories in which it has been witnessing huge traction of late. While Licious will double down on these categories, with plans to launch offline stores and expand in smaller cities, it wants to stay away from the quick commerce race, where grocery delivery platforms are promising deliveries in 10-15 minutes. "No one has asked us for meat in 10 minutes, unlike coriander or lemon," Gupta said.

They spoke to Moneycontrol on the fundraising, their plans to expand offline, if plant-based meats will take off and the businesses they will stay away from.

Edited excerpts -

The $52 million round comes barely four months after you raised $192 million. So, why now? Is it a reflection of the current funding environment?

Vivek Gupta: This fundraiser was not planned, it was more opportunistic. These investors were engaged with us during our last fundraise and with the limited opportunity, we could not include everybody so the conversation kept going. We have also grown 60% post our last fundraise so that was another big thing that was happening.

It is a new avatar of IIFL where they participate slightly early, they have multiple pockets of money that start from early growth to late-stage growth to pre IPO and IPO. The intent is surely there to make use of IIFL's expertise on the IPO path.

Your statement said 500 percent growth- can you share some specifics here in terms of revenue?

Abhay Hanjura: We are at 1000+ revenue run rates now. (Over Rs 80 crore of revenue per month). We have seen an exhilarating hockey stick curve, we launched in 7 new tier 2 cities, including Vizag and Cochin. Our ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat businesses have been flying. 20 percent of our business is now coming from ready to cook and ready to eat.

Vivek Gupta: We wanted to accelerate our offline play, omnichannel play, double down on ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat and we are also looking at expanding into newer cities slightly faster than our original plan. We are seeing some amazing results here so that has built further confidence in the team to look at a larger map of India and accelerate the speed.

How are your offline stores going to be different and when will this get launched?

Abhay Hanjura: Anything Licious has done has not carried the existing baggage of industry. We will hold these cards close to our chest

Vivek Gupta: In another 2-3 months, we will start with Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and for the first year, we will go at a normal pace.

Do you believe there is more bang for the buck in the existing top 14 cities?

Vivek Gupta: It's not a choice of either or, even in the top 14 cities, the kind of consumption that happens is insane. Delhi consumes Rs 20,000 crore of meat a year, Bengaluru consumes Rs 7,000 - Rs 8000 crore of meat, Mumbai consumes Rs 15,000 crore meat a year. Going deep is very obvious for a brand like ours.

We have just started trying in Tier- 2 in the last one year and that just came as a huge positive surprise.

Abhay Hanjura: This is one of the largest spends from the customer's wallet which is also repeatable, so you don't need to spray and pray if you go deeper into consumer cohorts. Our average revenue per customer has gone up by more than 25 percent, because they might start with chicken but they later also buy our spreads and ready to cook products.

What do you make of the quick commerce trend? Can you push the bar when it comes to meat and seafood delivery?

Vivek Gupta: Meat is a very different and involved category where you are more worried about the quality of product and choices rather than it comes in 10 minutes.

Abhay Hanjura: It is also planned. You don't suddenly think- I want to make crab curry, where's the crab...

Vivek Gupta: We have multiple offerings - you can order in 90 minutes, same day or next day- there are already enough choices. No one has asked us for meat in 10 minutes, if we start selling coriander we may do that but that is not the plan.

From a competition standpoint, who's a bigger threat today- vertical players like FreshToHome or platforms like Swiggy, which is betting big on meat delivery?

Vivek Gupta: We had that fear in 2015, I don't think we need to be worried about that now, we need to be worried about our consumer experience, if we can do the same thing again and again repeatedly at scale, nothing will break.

Abhay Hanjura: Any other player - if you start worrying about something else, you will run in the wrong direction. We see our role in the category as the role Amul played in the milk category. And then the other players came in.

Vivek Gupta: Winners come in competition, we are happy for other companies

What else can you potentially deliver, using the network you have?

Abhay Hanjura: We don't want to deliver anything else. We don't see ourselves getting excited about delivering a bottle of milk or coriander. Consumer brands should know what not to do

Vivek Gupta: Everyone clubbed meat into some other supply chain. We have built a separate supply chain, so why club that with this? All our products will be meat or around meat.

What's your take on the move towards plant-based meat? Will it take off in India?

Abhay Hanjura: The context is different. In Europe, the per capita consumption of meat is between 80-120 kilos per person. India continues to be a protein-deficient nation. So as far as protein deficiency is concerned, we believe animal protein will lead the charge.

In India, unlike our Western counterparts, we are blessed with good-quality vegetarian food. Your choices are so much richer and tastier. The product should not be called that way but taste like it. The protein deficiency will be solved by those who create a winning customer proposition.

Earlier this year, both of you were down with COVID for a few weeks. What did that experience teach you and what can other entrepreneurs learn from it?

Vivek Gupta: Keep solving for great products, great teams, and customer experience. The team that we built at Licious held the fort. The month we were in the hospital, by the time we came back, our revenue grew by 25 percent. If you hire great people and inspire them, keep them happy- things just fall in place.

Abhay Hanjura: When you survive something like this, it is a life-altering experience. The episode made us realise what a privilege it is to be at the receiving end of organisation building, brand creation, value creation. The summary of that experience is we are not building Licious anymore, Licious is building us.