On track to report Rs 1,000 cr revenue, says agro startup WayCool Foods CEO

WayCool Foods and Products Pvt Ltd is 'on track' to report Rs 1,000 crore top line during the current financial year, nearly tripling its revenues registered last year, official said.

Agriculture supply chain startup WayCool Foods and Products Pvt Ltd is 'on track' to report Rs 1,000 crore top line during the current financial year, nearly tripling its revenues registered last year, a top company official said.

The city-based company was also in the 'process of a large fundraising' to augment its "technology platform" and also fulfill its plan of having a presence in every pin code of Southern and Western regions, WayCool Foods and Products Pvt Ltd., chief executive officer and co-founder Karthik Jayaraman said.

"We have grown over 2.5 times in the last one year and in fact, we surpassed full year revenue of FY-21 by September of this year.. we are on track to hit Rs 1,000 crore revenue in the current financial year," he told PTI.

To a query on fundraising plans, he said the company underwent three rounds of equity capital totaling to USD 46 million.

"(Currently), we are in the middle of a large round, we will be hitting above USD 100 million and the intent is to deploy the fund raised through both debt and equity over the next 18-24 months... ", he said.

The funds would be utilized for strengthening the technology 'backbone', expanding footprint among others, he said.

"We are looking at a number of strategic investments, some of it will be minority and some will be controlling (stakes)..we want to strengthen our technology platform and that will be one area of acquisition and second (acquisition) will be in the supply chain...", he said.

On expanding presence, he said, "we want to strengthen our footprint in Southern and Western India and would like to be in every pin code in these two geographies.. we also have a presence in the Middle East.. it is a logical extension since a lot of Indian expatriates are there".

Regarding the impact of Covid-19 pandemic, he said, the company faced logistics issues initially as there was neither a shortage of supply nor demand since the company was in the basic commodity sector.

"Pandemic has been a never before event for all of us.. we observed a few things during the pandemic.. there was neither a shortage of supply nor demand in our supply chain because we are a basic commodity.. However, the linkages (connectivity) were broken..", he said.

Noting that the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated 'digitization' among the traders, he said in view of this the 22 member technology team of the company grew to 115 and that was a big shift made during the outbreak.

Jayaraman said the company introduced 'automation' in its warehouse and the dry groceries which go through the automation process make up over 50 per cent of the demand.

"Fresh produce makes about 35 percent of the demand for dry groceries..", he added.

The company was building a 'mother' warehouse in Chromepet in Chennai and plans to have similar ones in every major metropolitan city in southern parts of the country, he said.

According to him, the company was initially serving 8,000 shops which rose to over one lakh shops. WayCool supplies 850 tonnes of food every day to more than 60 different locations across the country and also to 15 countries for select products.