Highlight:

  • An India based foodtech startup raises pre-Series A investment led by Whiteboard Capital and Ahimsa Capital.

Thrive, a Mumbai based footech startup, has successfully raised pre-series A funding led by Whiteboard Capital and a couple of marquee angel investors. The startup plans to use these funds to add more restaurants to the platform and extend its product offering.

The worth of the pre-Series A funding led by Whiteboard Capital and Ahimsa Capital is undisclosed. Furthermore, the team stated that they would be transitioning to a self-serve model that will make Thrive more accessible to small and independent restaurants nationwide.

In a press release by the company, Krishi Fagwani, Co-Founder and CEO at Hashtag Loyalty and Partner with Thrive, stated, “We quickly understood the reality for our business and the industry we serve had changed. We immediately went back to the drawing board and spoke to our customers to understand how this new normal will shape up. Thrive is a restaurant-first solution that will not only allow them to survive the harsh reality of the pandemic but also thrive in it.”

The company was founded earlier this year by Krishi Fagwani, Dhruv Dewan, and Karan Chechani. Thrive has built an integrated SaaS solution for restaurants to develop their own ordering experiences. This, in turn, helps them save up to 30% of their revenues and provides them with the ownership of the customer data.

Furthermore, Anish Malhotra, Founder, and General Partner at Ahimsa Capital said, “We are proud of the team’s tireless focus through these difficult months on helping restaurants take control of their destiny. Now, more than ever, businesses need to improve margins, own their distribution and data. Thrive allows them to do this and more.”

He added, “Krishi, Dhruv, and Karan have demonstrated strong and sensitive leadership with a relentless approach to making their customers more profitable. This positions them as a market and thought leader in the massive systemic shift in food and beverage consumption that we are witnessing, a market which will continue to grow and Thrive.”

What’s in store?

Solutions by Thrive enable restaurants to share their digital ordering links with customers to enable them to order from social media platforms such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and also text message with just a few clicks.

Prior to Trive’s discovery, the co-founders had developed Hashtag Loyalty, a customer engagement and loyalty tool deployed by thousands of restaurants across India. The platform forms the backbone of Thrive.

The investor take

Anshu Prasher, General Partner at Whiteboard Capital, said, “Leveraging their background in customer relationship management and a deep understanding of the restaurant industry, the Thrive team has built an extremely relevant vertical tech product solving for data and control for their partners. We have loved the initial engagement and partnerships the company has forged and look forward to an exciting journey with the team.”

More about Thrive

The foodtech platform was released in its beta stage back in July this year and scaled to more than 1,500 partner restaurants in Delhi and Mumbai.

On the business front, Thrive has joined hands with popular names such as Natural Ice Creams, Lite Bite Foods and Izumi, Americano, and more.

In a press release, the company stated that its GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) increased by 330%, and its partners witnessed savings between 15% to 17% even after subtracting delivery costs.