Former Senior Unilever Execs Launch Authentic Food Company FairPlum; Raise $2 Million

Founding Team - L-R (Mayank Tandon,Rupesh Kumar Agarwal & Mitesh Thakkar)

• Round led by Unicorn India Ventures
• Reputed angels Vivek Sirohi, VP-R&D, Unilever, Amith Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO at Agri-Bazaar, Dinshaw family office, Anisha Subandh also participated in the round
• FairPlum has launched 5 brands Street Food Karvaan, Rollz Karvaan, Kebabi Karvaan , Unmarried Kitchen & Crafted
• FairPlum plans on setting up 100 Cloud Kitchen locations, a physical experience center and 5 – 10 kiosks within 2022 starting from  Delhi NCR and Mumbai

Rupesh Agarwal, Mayank Tandon & Mitesh Thakkar have announced the launch of their entrepreneurial innings with FairPlum, a food company which will deliver authentic food to consumers without compromising on health and hygiene. Rupesh Agrawal and Mitesh Thakkar are ex Unilever, have worked in leadership roles across functions like Finance, procurement, manufacturing, product development and personal care. Mayank Tandon, is an F&B specialist and entrepreneur who has led, built and scaled hospitality brands at Reliance Retail, Sanjeev Kapoor Restaurants, Future Group Cloud Kitchens. He has managed a diverse portfolio of building restaurants, large commissaries, cloud kitchens and food retail, in India and in International markets.

FairPlum has raised $2 million in a seed round led by Mumbai-based early stage focused VC Unicorn India Ventures. Reputed angels Vivek Sirohi, VP-R&D, Unilever, Amith Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO at Agri-Bazaar, Dinshaw Family Office, Anisha Subandh have also participated in the round.

FairPlum was founded in 2020 with the ambition to create products & brands which the consumers love, a food company that delivers authentic flavors and food nostalgia to customer doorsteps in less than an hour.

Fairplum is working with the regional/ local authentic & heritage food brands of India and taking nostalgic dishes from their kitchen and making it available to consumers sitting anywhere by using food technology, food science and a supply chain network of cloud kitchens.

FairPlum products are deployed through a phygital model of cloud kitchens, e-commerce, experience centres and channel sales platform. The food company has partnered with popular food brands and food entrepreneurs from across India to make available authentic food specialties they miss through the brand concept “Food Karvaan”.

FairPlum plans to have 100 Cloud Kitchen locations, 1 Physical experience center, 5-10 kiosks within 2022 starting from Delhi-NCR & Mumbai. The food company operates in 17 locations and has confirmed 10 more cloud kitchen locations and 1 Physical Experience center in Thane along with Bikanervala which is expected to go live in the next 2 months.

Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures, says, “FairPlum leverages technology to enhance efficiency and preserve the taste of the food which will be delivered in under an hour. Their ability to adopt the changing trend driven by technology has made the world closer to the consumer. Today, the consumer wants what they see and with immediate fulfilment. The food industry is undergoing a significant revolution especially with its creativity, innovation and cutting edge technologies. We saw a strong pipeline of user base and business traction addressing food nostalgia which is why we decided to invest in them further"

Rupesh Agrawal, Founder & CEO, FairPlum, says, “Fairplum wants to make foods/brands accessible by bringing authentic foods from across the world at great quality, and value. Our vision is to run a network of hundreds of cloud kitchens/ physical experience centers on which we will ride our most authentic and iconic foods and their brands from all over the world. The purpose is to deliver food products to consumers by preserving goodness in a healthy and hygienic manner. We will use the fresh funds to improve consumer experience with innovations in technology and upgrade the infrastructure with expanding the platform to other strategic territories.”

Nitesh Arora, President, Credence Family Office, says, "The sole advisors to the deal, adds, "Today's generation has very specific tastes and would highly appreciate the fact that their favorite food is made available at their doorstep. I believe this could be a very large & scalable opportunity for FairPlum.”

FairPlum has launched Kebabi Karvaan which is a sub brand of Food Karvaan that makes Iconic Foods Accessible and Unmarried Kitchen, a brand aimed at bachelors. The Company has also launched Street Food Karvaan, Rollz Karvaan and Crafted.

Unicorn India Ventures is a Mumbai-based early stage fund house started in 2015 by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar. The Fund has also launched a UK India cross border fund for funding UK startups looking to enter India. From its first Fund, UIV has invested in 18 companies like Inc42, Sequretek, Pharmarack, Genrobotics, NeuroEquilibrium, SmartCoin, Open Bank, Open app to name a few. Unicorn India has also announced Fund II, which is a Rs 300 crore fund launched in 2019 which has invested in 19 companies so far.

About FairPlum

Fairplum was started by IIT Delhi alumni Rupesh Agarwal in Year 2020, with the ambition to create products & brands which the consumers love. The first stint was a joint venture with Rossari Biotech to create ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) for Personal Care products,. Rupesh was leading the set-up as Co-founder and CEO. He created a capability of Product Development in IIT-Mumbai, Manufacturing in Silvassa & a sourcing team. The Team delivered Rs.20Cr. ARR within one year of operations with deployment of 250+ products across customer bases of Purplle, Amazon, Shoppers Stop, FirstCry, Faces Canada etc. Partnership was then sold to JV partner Rossari Biotech on July-21. 

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