Hot Startup - Chicken Tikka in a
Hurry? Box it
Box8 The company presents and packages daily food in an easy to
consume format
Indian food, not counting `vada pav', typically is not on-the-go
staple. Served in platters or on banana leaves, lunches and dinners can be
elaborate sitdown affairs. Spotting an opportunity, IIT graduates Anshul Gupta
and Amit Raj launched Box8 in 2013 for the twain to meet.
“The idea was to present Indian meals in an easy-to-consume
fashion as they are not really finger-friendly. You can't really eat Indian
food on your desk,“ said CEO Raj, 29, who earlier ran Mexican food stalls at
tech parks in Mumbai.
T he company puts together popular Indian dishes in a single box
so they can be consumed as easily as most continental cuisines with a spoon
or fork irrespective of whether it is roti or rice. It achieves this by
layering or portioning curry, chutney and vegetables into bitesized helpings in
a way as to not compromise texture or taste. This allows them enough room to
experiment with chole tikki, paneer makhni and other elaborate foods.
“We have had some criticisms in terms of food becoming soggy,
etc., but we are always refining our processes,“ said Raj, a former employee of
consu lti ng f i r m Mu Sigma.
Box8, which raised Rs 21 crore from Mayfield Fund earlier in May,
plans to launch services in other metro cities, and ex pects its order value to
triple in a few months.
Office-goers such as Saurabh Rathore have become regulars,
ordering from Box8 for about a year. “It's a convenience factor, especially for
bachelors like me, who have people coming over all the time,“ said the
31-year-old IT professional, who also uses the service at his office.
Box8 delivers 2,0 0 0 orders a day, about 80% of which are from
repeat customers, an important metric for on-demand companies.It has
competitors at various levels: Dazo and Swiggy deliver from restaurants or
local chefs, while SpoonJoy and Nutritown prepare food at their own or
networked kitchens, but rely on subscriptions.
Box8 operates through the entire chain. A chicken tikka's journey
starts from any of the vendors the company has tied up with.
The food is prepared and cooked at one of Box8's kitch ens, and
people posted at its 22 outlets prepare the salad a few minutes before the
entire package is boxed.
“Lots of players focus on certain pieces in the online restaurant
space.
We own the entire value chain, and that translates into 70% gross
margins,“ said Raj.
“Its standardisation of proc esses makes scaling up easy: starting
with real estate, technology and efficient back-end supply chain,“ said Sanjay
Mehta, an angel investor who put in Rs 12 lakh in the company.
Other angel investors include Mu Sigma founder Dhiraj Rajaram;
Kaushal Aggarwal, cofounder and managing director of investment bank Avendus Capital;
and Indian Angel Network.
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Krithika Krishnamurthy
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Bengaluru:
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ET29MAY15
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