Karnataka, India-based seafood supply chain platform Captain Fresh has raised USD 40 million (EUR 35.4 million) in its Series B funding round to support its continued growth.
The fundraising round was co-led by Tiger Global and Prosus Ventures and participated in by existing investors comprising Matrix Partners India, Accel India, Ankur Capital, and Incubate Fund. Elluminate Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor to Captain Fresh on the fundraising round.
The funds will be utilized to “build a real-time trading marketplace, AI [artificial intelligence] for pricing, and quality standardization and applying robotic automation to move volumes with precision,” the Business Standard reported 21 December. It will also be used to grow the team and distribution network across the geographies it is operating.
"For centuries, the fish and seafood industry has stayed the same with very little innovation and we have a unique opportunity to revolutionize the sector utilizing technology,” Captain Fresh CEO and Founder Utham Gowda.
Captain Fresh previously raised USD 12 million (EUR 10.6 million) in its Series A round in July this year, as well as USD 3 million (EUR 2.6 million) in March and USD 2.3 million (EUR 2 million) in August 2020.
Established in April 2019, Captain Fresh is an online platform that matches seafood providers with retailers. It claims to offer services including facilitation of e-auctions for sourcing, standardization of seafood supply, securement of on-time payments, and use of digital traceability systems in its operations.
Captain Fresh first began operations in Bangalore and has since expanded operations to other cities across the country. The company partners with leading brands in the meat and seafood sectors to bring its brands online, and currently serves more than 2,000 retail businesses in all formats in 20 cities in India. The start-up has achieved a six-fold growth in the last year, selling on average 1.2 million kilograms of fish and seafood products monthly.
"Captain Fresh has experienced exponential growth over the last 12 months and this fundraise is a testament to their supply first tech-enabled business model that has helped them scale rapidly while improving economics by optimizing for losses and dump in the seafood supply chain," Matrix Partners India’s Principal Sudipto Sannigrahi said.
