Speed Kitchen, a KAAS startup, has successfully raised a Seed round of funding. The round was led by Inflection Point Ventures, with participation from other high-net-worth individuals (HNIs) and angel investors. The funds will be used to expand the company’s operations nationwide, increase its footprint, and recruit a talented team to accelerate its growth.
Speed Kitchen, headquartered in New Delhi, India, is a KAAS company that offers comprehensive solutions for cloud kitchens. From identifying optimal locations for culinary operations to building F&B brands, Speed Kitchen simplifies the process. By minimizing capital expenditure and operating costs, it enables brands to expand effortlessly into new markets.
Currently, Speed Kitchen operates in 5 cities, boasting 10 locations and over 120 kitchens. The company’s overarching vision is to broaden its value chain and become an all-encompassing infrastructure service provider for the F&B industry.
Founded in 2021 by Paurav Rastogi (CEO) and Shamin Kapoor (Founding Partner), Speed Kitchen leverages their expertise in proptech, hospitality, real estate project management, sales, and marketing. Paurav Rastogi brings more than 10 years of growth leadership and firsthand experience in managing and conceptualizing real estate projects, while Shamin Kapoor has over 5 years of experience in sales, marketing, and building tech startups, with a particular interest in the F&B and real estate sectors.
Paurav Rastogi, Founder of Speed Kitchen, said, “One of the most enlightening experiences, got to learn a lot about the start-up world, processes and network with some great minds. We at Speed Kitchen are aiming to become the leading Cloud Kitchen infrastructure in the Indian market, the first step of which is to expand to 20+ locations and cross 200+ operational kitchens by the end of FY 23-24.”
Inflection Point Ventures (IPV) is a prominent angel investing platform, uniting over 7,400 CXOs, high-net-worth individuals (HNIs), and professionals to collectively invest in startups. The firm extends financial and experiential capital to support emerging entrepreneurs, while also facilitating connections with a diverse network of investors. IPV has recently unveiled Physis Capital, a Category 2 Alternative Investment Fund (AIF), with a fund size of $50 million. Physis Capital is specifically designed to invest in growth-stage startups, ranging from pre-Series A to Series B funding rounds.
Madhukar Bhardwaj, Senior Vice President of Inflection Point Ventures, said, “Over the years, cloud kitchen has witnessed a significant rise, especially post-Covid. While the brand’s cost is significantly reduced with the cloud kitchen concept, it still has to consider multiple factors like kitchen setup, maintenance services, location and much more. Keeping this in mind Speed Kitchen has developed a unique commercial shared kitchen concept which will further reduce the cost to run a kitchen. Additionally, it aims to provide new cloud-kitchen startups, entrepreneurs, and restaurant chains with shared space, which is a fully equipped, licensed kitchen at a prime location with end-to-end maintenance services. Thus, enabling brands to focus on their business and expand faster to newer markets.”
The Cloud Kitchen industry is growing rapidly at a CAGR of 39%. Valued at $800 million in FY 22, it is expected to reach $1.9 billion by 2026. However, modern cloud kitchen brands face challenges in space acquisition, infrastructure setup, maintenance, and service. Speed Kitchen, a Cloud kitchen infrastructure company, tackles these pain points with an asset-light Kitchen as a Service model. They provide fully operational cloud kitchens at prime locations, along with end-to-end maintenance services. This enables brands to expand into new markets quickly and effortlessly with minimal investment.
Over the past 18 months, the company has successfully expanded its operations in Delhi-NCR, Jaipur, Pune, Bangalore, and Mumbai. They have established a robust network of brands and kitchen partners. Moving forward, their focus will be on further expanding their presence to other Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.
