The Whole Truth Ends Series B Round with USD 15M Funds Raised
Health food brand The Whole Truth has raised $15 million in its Series B round, led by Sequoia Capital India. Other investors in the round include existing backers Matrix Partners India and early-stage venture firm Sauce.vc. The Mumbai-based company has been valued at around Rs 600 crore, or about $73 million, following the funding, founder and CEO Shashank Mehta told ET.
Last month, that the company had raised nearly $11 million from Sequoia Capital India and Matrix Partners India. The Series B round also includes angel investors such as Zerodha co-founder Nithin Kamath, Swiggy co-founder Sriharsha Majety and Rebel Foods co-founder Jaydeep Burman. The company has not onboarded any new investor in this round.
Founded in 2019 by Mehta, an ex-Unilever marketeer, the company sells clean label bars and muesli without hidden sugars, artificial flavours and harmful preservatives. Rachna Aggarwal, a bakery chef and chocolatier, heads its product development team. Mehta said the company will deploy the latest capital in scaling up the brand’s in-house chocolate bars manufacturing capacity to one million units a month from 100,000 units per month now, over the next six months.
Additionally, he said the money will be deployed to hire more people and grow its retail distribution network. Currently, quick commerce platforms like Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart are the company’s top distribution channels. Mehta said going forward, physical retail is expected to have a big share in The Whole Truth’s distribution pie.
The company last raised $6 million, or roughly Rs 43 crore, in July last year. The Series A round was led by Sequoia Capital. “Sequoia Capital India is delighted to double-down on the partnership with The Whole Truth. We have been working with Shashank, Rachna, and team for over a year and a half now and have been very impressed with their product innovation engine, marketing acumen, and overall quality of execution,” said Abhishek Mohan, principal at Sequoia India.
For the year ended March 31, 2021, The Whole Truth reported operating revenue of Rs 4.83 crore, a more than six-fold increase from the year-ago period. Losses also widened to Rs 3.66 crore in FY21, from Rs 93.10 lakh in FY20. The company has yet to file its financial statements for 2021-22 (April-March).