Food tech in India is at it again, but this time with a healthy spin. Today, Bangalore-based Jiyo Natural raised an undisclosed amount of funding from the Indian Angels Network. Founded by Jayas Damodaran and Sharan Hiremath in 2014, Jiyo Natural sends customers to a checkup and consultation with a Jiyo Natural doctor who then prescribes a personalized set of meal guidelines. These guidelines are sent to a dietician and chef who create a specialized meal plan, prepare the meal, and deliver it directly to a customer’s doorstep. In order to maintain quality, ingredients are locally sourced and Jiyo Natural ties up with organic farms in the area.
“Our customers are two kinds of people,” explains Jayas. “The first – this is our fastest growing market – are the ones that don’t have any specific issues but want to be healthy. The second are those who already have health issues and want to change their eating habits.”
Jayas went on to explain that Jiyo Natural has managed to capture a fairly large audience with minimal marketing. “That’s where our latest investment will go,” he says. “We’re also looking to make the lives of our customers easier by providing smoother end-to-end technology in things like the subscription process.”
Look before you leap into food tech
With food tech startups in India shutting shop and scaling down, IAN’s latest investment into the food tech industry may come as a surprise for some.
“It’s true, in the past 12 to 18 months, food tech has seen a huge amount of interest,” explained Sumit Dhingra from the Indian Angels Network. He led the Jiyo Natural investment and will be joining its board. “The sector has become overcrowded, and we’ve been waiting for an interesting investment. Jiyo is entirely different because it’s not trying to solve problems of eating out or the convenience of food. Instead, it’s trying to build a tasty health food option that can go so far as to replace home cooking entirely.”
Jiyo has two main value propositions that attracted the investment, he went on to explain. “The first is that it manages to lock in some of these customers for months. The second is that we’re approaching quantity, as in the number of times that a customer will order Jiyo Natural three, four, or five times in the same week.”
IAN’s last invested was in on-demand mini truck booking startup Quifers. They led the US$300,000 round.
Is India in a food tech bubble? Where does healthy food fit in? Chime in below.
Editing by C. Custer and Nadine Freischlad, images by Dean Hochman and David Saddler
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