Venture Catalysts leads USD 1M Pre-Series A round in Klovechef, A culinary focused AI technology to make consumer kitchen journeys interactive and efficient
Mumbai, 12th November, 2020: Venture Catalysts, India's first and largest integrated incubator and accelerator, has led the USD 1M Pre-Series A round financing in Klovechef, An innovative platform that leverages cutting-edge conversational AI-based technology to enhance consumer culinary and buying experiences. The funding round also saw participation from new investors JPIN VCATs, Ravindranath Chenna and Klovechef's existing investors SOSV (Food-X), NB Ventures and Angel investors Alok Nanavaty, Kanwar Chadha, Rajiv Nayan and Hans Black and few other investors.
Klovechef has earlier raised Seed round from visionary Angel investors like Rajan Anandan, Swamy Kotagiri, Rajshekhar Metgud, Berro Family as well as LetsVenture.
Founded in 2017, Klovechef's founding team of Bahubali Shete, Asha Shete, and Chef Sanjeev Kapoor later joined as a cofounder, bringing both leading technology and culinary experience to build the platform.
Klovechef aims to make people's complete kitchen journeys interactive and efficient through their innovative AI-powered and voice-first platform that works like a conversational kitchen assistant on voice assistant platforms like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. It enables users to add ingredients to their grocery list, get endless recipe recommendations, and receive personalized step-by-step help with meal preparation.
The platform leverages the power of AI and Machine Learning focused on culinary applications (Culinary AI™) to become better with usage by learning from the users' cooking patterns, tastes and preferences, thereby also providing personalized recommendations. Klovechef has been live in India since July 2019 on Amazon Alexa, where it has more than 850K unique users and has clocked nearly 2.5 million meals searched on Alexa.
Speaking on the investment, Bahubali Shete, Co-founder– Klovechef, said, "The global voice shopping market is still young and holds tremendous growth potential. With our innovative platform, we hope to tap into the growing interest around healthy eating and home cooking in the post-COVID-19 market. Following tremendous success in India, the funding from Venture Catalysts will help us grow our user base and accelerate our expansion efforts into the North American voice shopping market which is currently the largest globally."
Speaking on his joining Klovechef, Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, said, "I have always been for marrying technology with culinary experiences. And Klovechef, I found it to be way ahead of anything that is there in the market. And Bahubali my cofounder, his understanding of technology and need to give culinary experiences a big edge, that sets him apart. That is why I am a cofounder in Klovechef today and I firmly believe it's voice based culinary experiences will win the consumers in the kitchen".
Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & President – Venture Catalysts, commented, "Klovechef has succeeded in integrating the innovative idea of voice shopping with the safety and reliability of home cooking. The market space the company is addressing is ripe for disruption, especially in the post-pandemic context. Since the viral outbreak, people are preferring to rely on home cooked meals on account of safety and hygiene concerns. Consequently, we believe that Klovechef is well-poised to capitalize on this trend through its remarkable AI-based product."
Kovechef's strategic alliances with Amazon Alexa and affiliate partnerships with Amazon Meal Kits (India) as well as other meal kit providers and grocery retailers based in the US and Canada will further help them to operate in the rapidly growing market right at the intersection of a $40 billion global voice shopping market and a $500 billion food & beverage market. Given the new normal of work-from-home + home cooking and the trend towards exponentially growing online grocery shopping, Klovechef is in a great position to become the leader in integrated kitchen experiences for home cooking and voice shopping.
About Venture Catalysts
Venture Catalysts is India's first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1.5 Million in early stage start-ups that have potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time. Venture Catalysts brings a lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring and Business Network to help investors succeed. Their innovation provides value to start-ups through its extensive angel network, funding, community, services and co-working facility.
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