World’s largest fish and meat online retailer raises $121m to expand operations

FreshToHome.com, the world’s largest online fish and meat store, raised $121m in Series C funding to further its expansion plans.

The funding round has been led by Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), Investcorp, Ascent Capital, The United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and Allana with follow-on investment from Series B investor Iron Pillar.

The capital will be used to support the brand’s expansion in India and the Middle East, and proposed plans to launch in Saudi Arabia too. The company, through the funding, is targeting $200m in sales in 2021. The consumer market size of fish and meat segment in India in 2019 was $94bn, according to Euromonitor International estimates.

“Covid-19 transformed the fish and meat purchasing behaviour of consumers dramatically,” said Shan Kadavil, co-founder and CEO of FreshToHome.

“Due to safety concerns, consumers made the habit-forming shift to e-commerce and we saw online demand for our products going up many folds this year thanks to safety guarantee of ‘100 per cent fresh and 0 per cent chemicals’. FreshToHome stands by the brand’s assurance and creates enormous social and economic impact by enabling sellers to directly source from the fishermen and farmers with its patent-pending AI-powered supply chain technology and aided by a state-of-the-art cold chain.”

“FreshToHome is a leader in leveraging AI-based technology and business innovation to bring a superior value proposition to customers and suppliers in a large and important market,” said Khalifa Al Daboos, deputy CEO of ICD.

“At ICD, we seek to partner with companies like FreshToHome that are able to break new ground for the greater good while also enjoying a large shareholder value creation opportunity.”

Support from its existing investors CE-Ventures – the VC arm of UAE’s Crescent Enterprises – helped its expansion in the UAE, where it is already one of the top 5 e-grocers.

FreshToHome is the world’s largest fully integrated online brand in fresh fish and meat e-commerce, with approximately 1.5 million B2C orders per month.