Food startup Authenticook gets Rs 1.45cr from Booking.Com

Flush with a grant of Rs 1.45 crore (200,000 euros), food startup Authenticook today said it is expecting to increase the number of cities covered by four-times to up to 40 by end of 2018.
"We are present in nine cities now and expect to increase this to 35-40 by the end of 2018," the city-based startup's co-founder Ameya Deshpande told PTI over phone.
He said the company plans to break-even in 2019 and is looking to get a Series A funding sometime next year.
By the end of 2019, the company that helps people eat traditional home food with local families, aims to be present in 75 cities, he said.

It won a grant of 200,000 euros in a contest run by the world's largest hotel aggregator Booking.Com, for which 700 startups from across the world had applied for.
Deshpande said the 2015-founded company will be utilising nearly half of the grant to improve its marketing efforts and the rest for creating operations teams and upgrading the technology.

It has not gone through any fund infusion exercise till now where the founders have diluted equity.
The company underwent a three-week programme at Amsterdam before the selection for the grant and Deshpande said the mentorship will continue for almost nine months more.

"We saw in Authenticook a truly great idea, smart business acumen and the ability to promote inclusive growth in Indian tourism that supports and develops local economies and communities," Booking's country head Vikas Bhola said in a statement.