20 Things You Didn’t Know About Licious
Licious is a startup that sells fresh meat and seafood online. The company has recently made headlines in business news with its surging success that has attracted investors to support the company’s growth and expansion. It joins the ever-growing list of startups coming from the country of India that are finding tremendous success in the marketplace. Licious is making a huge impact in the food industry as it is growing in popularity with consumers and looking towards expanding into new untapped markets. To bring you up to speed on this exciting new company, here are 20 things you probably didn’t know about Licious.
1. Licious is busting a new tail in the food industry
According to Crunchbase, Licious has cleared a new path with its revolutionary concept for solving the problem of safe and delicious fresh meat within the borders of its home country of India. This has been an ongoing issue for citizens of the nation. Licious has established an enterprise that procures fresh meats and sells it to customers with a guarantee that it is fresh and wholesome. It has become a trustworthy source for obtaining fresh meats in a country where the process has previously been sketchy.
2. Licious is a versatile operation
Licious is a company that falls under four main industry categories. This is because of the various services that it provides for its customers. It is considered an e-commerce business because it sells products through online orders. It is under food and beverage because these are the kinds of products it sells. It is also a delivery service that ensures customers receive their orders in fresh and wholesome condition, and promptly. Finally, it is also categorized as a food delivery service.
3. Licious is still a young company
Licious has only been in business for six years as of 2021. It was founded in 2015 by the two co-founders Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura. The legal name of Licious is Delightful Gourmet Pvt Ltd. The headquarters of Licious is located in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
4. Licious has an executive leadership team of 9 members
9 members are leading Licious at an executive level. Abhay Hanjura is a co-founder. Vivek Gupta is a co-founder. Varun Sadana is a co-founder and senior vice president of operations. Rajnish Goel is the chief supply chain officer. Gaurav Sharma is the senior product manager. Vineet Khanna is the senior vice president of operations. Hariom Verma is the head of talent acquisition. Bhaskar Raju Konduru is the chief technology officer.
5. Licious has a 3-member board of directors
There are three persons on the board of directors for Licious. Pranav Pai joined the board as an advisor on August 1, 2015. He is a founding partner and chief investment officer of 3one4 Capital with four portfolio companies and 2 exits. Ben Mathias joined the board as a member in November of 2018. He is a managing partner for Vertex Ventures. He is currently involved in 9 board and advisor roles. Sameer Brij Verma is a board member with one portfolio company. He is a managing director at Nexus Venture Partners who currently serves on 15 board and advisory committees.
6. Licious uses 84 technologies
The Licious website requires the use of 84 technologies for its operation. It’s a complicated array of different technologies that are distributed over 40 different technology products and services. Some of them include Google Analytics, jQuery, HTML5, iPhone Mobile Compatible, SPF, Viewport Meta, and many others. Although Licious has not made it public, the overhead costs of running so many technology products and services can run into the tens of thousands quickly. Because of the large number that Licious uses, we estimate that its annual IT budget is over $100,000 per year for tech services alone.
7. Public interest in Licious is growing rapidly
The analytics for the Licious website show that there is a growing interest in the products and services offered by the startup. The average number of monthly visits to the website is a staggering 1,340,572. This has given Licious a solid and high-ranking number of 36,771 out of the millions of websites that are registered on the world wide web. This figure is driven by traffic and Licious has a high monthly volume that is growing at a rate of 16.5 percent.
8. Licious is the most popular in India
Licious was founded in the country of India and this is where the majority of its web traffic originates from. Ninety-eight percent of the visitors are from India. One percent are from the United States. Interestingly, the one percent of web traffic reflects a monthly visits growth rate of 139.86 percent which shows Americans are becoming aware of Licious. There are also visitors from other countries with numbers that do not make it to the one percent threshold, but they’re still showing interest France’s web traffic is up by 121 percent. Some visit the site from the United Arab Emirates, and people from Singapore have increased their interest with a 102.6 percent growth in the monthly visit rate. This data is useful for decision-makers at Licious who are looking at areas for expansion into international territories.
9. Licious is a late-stage venture capital business
Licious has participated in more than seven rounds of venture capital fundraising activities. The most recent event closed on June 11, 2021, with a Series F round. So far, the startup has raised $286.5 million in VC funding.
10. Investor confidence is high in Licious
Licious is a popular startup with investors because of its high likelihood of achieving success. Investors are pouring millions into the company because they believe that the funds they’re putting to work will in time yield a high return on the investments. Licious has twenty-one investors that support the business with venture capital. Among them are Vertex Growth Fund, Bertelsmann India Investments, Multiples Alternate Asset Management Private Limited (lead investor), 3one4 Capital, Narshing Dass Makkar, Brunei Investment Agency, Temasek Holdings (lead investor), and several others.
11. Licious is preparing to expand
According to Techcrunch, Licious is getting ready to expand its online fresh meat and seafood services. Plans are underway to use the $192 million it recently raised into the South Asian Market. Two of the investment companies leading the latest round of Series F funding that raised a large amount of funding are Temasek and Multiples Private Equity.
12. Licious is an emerging unicorn
Licious has not yet reached the $1 billion mark in its valuation. However, it’s on its way to achieving the goal. Its post-funding value after the latest round of venture capital fundraising is $650 million. It’s more than halfway to that goal and it’s expected to reach unicorn status shortly. It’s a part of the booming array of startups coming out of India.
13. Some of Licious investors sold their stakes
Venture Capital companies that invest in privately held companies such as Licious, do so under an agreed arrangement for a stake in the company and in its profits. Although Licious has its share of investors and then some, a few of the early investors took advantage of their options and sold some of their stakes in the business.
14. Licious has experienced tremendous growth
An unidentified person from Licious who wishes to remain anonymous disclosed that the company has recently experienced growth of five hundred percent within the past twelve months. Licious is playing their cards close to the vest but information has gotten out. The startup has delivered fresh meats and seafood to over two million unique customers in the past year. Business is booming and they’re making bank.
15. The valuation of Licious has more than doubled since 2019
Licious started its operations in 2015. As of December of 2019, when the startup completed a round of Series E funding, the valuation was placed at $285 million. Since that time, the valuation has grown to well over double that figure to $650 million. It’s quickly approaching the triple value mark.
16. Licious is improving the health and food standards of India
Part of the popularity and overall success of Licious is in the valuable services it is providing. India and its people have gained a healthy new resource that also adds a convenient way to shop for meat. Many of the meat markets fail to deliver wholesome quality meats for the masses of people who live there. The hot climate presents a problem for keeping seafood and meat cool enough to preserve the quality. It was becoming increasingly difficult to find healthy and fresh meats until Licious opened for business. It’s improving the overall health of the people of India by providing them with the poultry, seafood, and other meats that the public desires. Deliveries are completed within a couple of hours after online orders from consumers are received.
17. Licious is planning to expand internationally
Licious has deeply penetrated the fresh food market in India. It is looking to expand its reach into multiple geographies. Licious has developed a habit of only providing the public with vague answers about its growth strategies, so the representatives sharing the information didn’t elaborate about exactly where the company is planning to expand into, other than to say it would be an international expansion. What we do know is that there are plans to move into Southeast Asia, namely Singapore.
18. Licious is gearing up for some changes in tech
Another strategic move that Licious is planning to make is to broaden its supply chain networks and its tech. We’ve seen that they’ve discovered methods for revolutionizing the purchase of seafood and poultry in India and improved the freshness, quality, and timeliness of deliveries, but they are planning to do even more. There are plans underway to use some of the venture capital funds raised to expand its current supply chain network while implementing some new technologies to improve its services. They are building a direct-to-consumer brand that is just beginning and still in a stage of infancy. Since the pandemic hit, Licious has become even more relevant to the people of India. One of the company’s goals is to do its part to try to help people build up their immune systems through a healthier diet that includes fresh and wholesome proteins. This service offers resources to help battle the deadly Covid-19 virus that spread across the country. The virus is infecting and killing millions. India currently has a meat market valued at more than $4.4 billion. That market is still growing. Licious is getting its share of the piece of that pie.
19. Licious offers a range of meat and meat products
According to LinkedIn, Licious isn’t solely in the business of delivering poultry and seafood. They provide a broad range of some of the most popular food items in India. They procure, process, store, and then deliver seafood, fish, chicken, goat, lamb, pickle, spreads, and more. One of the goals of Licious is to become the most beloved food and beverage order and delivery company in the nation. From all appearances, they’re well on their way to achieving that goal.
20. Licious is a privately held company
You won’t find shares of Licious available on any of the world’s stock market exchanges. This is because the founders and leadership team have opted to keep the startup as a privately owned business. Licious has a horde of investors who are confident that the business is going to continue to thrive. They have all the funding that they need to continue to build their infrastructure, grow, and expand into other regions throughout the world. Often, companies go public to help raise funds to continue their growth and expansion, but it’s not an action that would benefit Licious to any degree. It’s doing fine as is by remaining in the category of a private company. The outlook is good for Licious and its success is likely going to continue to skyrocket.