Mumbai's Charcoal Eats is giving biryani a fast food makeover

Charcoal Eats has recently raised Rs 50 million in pre-series A funding, taking its total capital raised in 30 months to Rs 120 million

In the past few years, India has seen the emergence of biryani entrepreneurs — individuals who have pushed the humble biryani or mixed rice dish as fast food to consumers. While space remains small and has seen players come and go (such as Ammi’s Biryani and Biryani 360 which shut shop earlier), some are attempting to build a scalable model across the country.

One of them is Mumbai-based Charcoal Eats, a food start-up that first began operations as Charcoal Biryani in September 2015. In 30 months, the firm, founded by Anurag Mehrotra, Krishnakant Thakur, Gautam Singh and Mohammed Bhol, has gone