NEW DELHI, 7 September 2022: Suite42, a B2B food processing platform, announced today that it has raised USD 4.3 million in Seed funding.
The round was co-led by Omnivore and Orios Venture Partners, with participation from Titan Capital, All In Capital, Pointone Capital, and prominent angel investors including Sujeet Kumar (Udaan).
Suite42 provides contract manufacturing solutions for food processing, serving diverse B2B clients across the FMCG, agribusiness, and grocery industries. Despite the rapid increase in demand for branded food products, most food brands in India struggle with reliable manufacturing.
At the same time, India has more than 40,000 food processing units that suffer from multiple inefficiencies including low capacity utilization, lack of quality standardization, high wastage, and limited access to working capital financing.
Suite42's B2B food processing platform is working to solve these long standing issues, offering complete contract manufacturing solutions - identifying trusted manufacturing partners, enabling fair price discovery, reducing the cost of food processing, product development, ensuring quality standardization, lower minimum order sizes and optimizing logistics.
For the food processors, Suite42 is aggregating demand, driving better capacity utilization, and facilitating low-cost access to working capital.
Based in Bangalore, Suite42 was founded in 2022 by Rahul Ratan, Ramakrishna Cheruku, Chethan S, and Shriram S. Rahul and Ramakrishna are IIT graduates who were previously working with Udaan and Microsoft, respectively.
Chethan is an NIT graduate who has previously worked with Udaan and Hyundai Motors. Finally, Shriram, an alumnus of IIM Lucknow, has also worked with Udaan. Together, the founders have a deep knowledge of operations, logistics, credit, and the food supply chain.
Suite42 plans to use the Seed funding for talent acquisition, developing the "Suite42 Standard" in the food processing ecosystem, launching raw material financing, and piloting cross border trade (exports). In the next 18 months, the startup plans to work with various B2B clients including e-commerce, D2Cs, and FMCG brands, as well as 2000 modern trade outlets across multiple cities.
Rahul Ratan, Co-Founder and CEO of Suite42, commented, "We are excited to start our journey of potentially redefining the food processing industry in India. Our mission is to empower food manufacturers in India by leveraging technology and building efficient and standardized processes. Consequently, brands and consumers will have access to premium products and ingredients at affordable prices."
Jinesh Shah, the Managing Partner of Omnivore, said, "The sector is highly unorganized with deep inefficiencies. Less than 5% of India's agricultural output is processed, preventing realization of profits across the value chains. We are excited to see Suite42 revitalize the food processing space in India."
Vinit Bhansali, Senior Vice President at Orios Venture Partners, said, "Suite42 is building a platform to digitize the back end of a food brand from procurement to packaging. The team is targeting a massive TAM and manages the entire supply chain for the brand. We are excited to partner with the team in their endeavor to make food processing more efficient."
