HungerBox secures USD 2.5 Mn to scale operations

HungerBox, a B2B food-tech company announced the closing of a USD 2.5 million pre-series A funding led by Lionrock Capital and Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder, Infosys.

Started in 2016, HungerBox is a full stack, food-tech company that is focussed on the B2B space and operates over 100 digital cafeterias for more than 75 corporate clients including Qualcomm, Microsoft, FirstSource, Accenture, CapGemini, Genpact, ABB, Amazon and McKinsey, across Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi/NCR and Jaipur.

"We are clocking more than 120,000 daily orders and expect to scale this to half a million orders per day by end-2018. The funding we have received from marquee investors will boost our ability to scale our operations to keep pace with the traction we are seeing for our digital cafeteria management solution," said Sandipan Mitra, CEO and co-founder, HungerBox.

Spending on F&B in the B2B space alone is estimated to reach USD 14 billion in India in 2018, as the space is growing at 15 percent per annum.

HungerBox's tech-led solution enables end-to-end digital cafeteria management with the company's proprietary technology platform connecting food vendors to employees within client organisations through a customised mobile app available to each employee.

Using the app, employees can view the F&B menu provided by all enlisted food vendors at their workplace cafe's, place orders and track delivery accurately. They can also provide ratings / feedback. HungerBox's solution provides admin teams at the client organisation with the ability to track the entire F&B operation including food consumption, orders and feedback in real-time.

More than 50 different payment methods are integrate into the service offering including in-app purchases by an employee, payment via smart cards, m-wallets and self-serve kiosks at the cafe's.

HungerBox uses latest technology advancements like IoT in its solution to seamlessly connect the vendor side hardware (designed by HungerBox) and employees of corporate. The HungerBox solution also provides features like 'Personalised Recommendations' to employees through its AI-driven technology, 'Health Mode' for health conscious employees, ability to undertake group-ordering and orders from restaurants in the vicinity when corporate cafe's are closed.

The company has over 200 staff across India, and is promoted by GrowthStory, the venture-builder platform founded by serial entrepreneurs, K Ganesh and Meena Ganesh.