Page 48 - Forbes India (December 2015)

EntErprisE faasos

A food on-demand
company, Faasos is
present in 15 cities,
through its 160
delivery centres

received over 400 applications, out of believes, only began to show earlier (QSRs) to the other occupied by food
which they chose eight applicants. this year, following a funding round aggregators and delivery services,
Seven of these eight people have led by Lightbox Ventures and Sequioa including the likes of Zomato and
continued working with Faasos Capital, in which Faasos raised Foodpanda. They run highly scalable
and have carved out departments $20 million (about Rs 132 crore). models that entail tying up with
of their own. “We all began at restaurants and offering their food on
the operational level, but we mobilE, AgilE, tActicAl the platform. But, “we are very happy
quickly began taking up larger The constant streamlining of the being food-first,” insists Barman.
responsibilities,” says Revant Bhate, supply chain ensured that it was While food aggregators simply
one of the seven original entrants. technologically well integrated connect the user with food providers,
Bhate was involved in developing with the back-end. Several vendors or handle delivery, Faasos, because
the back-end of the company and worked in tandem to supply the of its food-first approach, had
now also heads marketing. “Since DC with different products that get the advantage of being both the
we were a small company, everyone put together and dispatched from provider and the facilitator. “It
ended up doing everything,” says it. In effect, every DC became an is the only scaled up food tech
Bhate. The roles have become more independent fulfilment centre. business that has full control on the
defined as the company has grown. With this set-up in place, at a time customer experience,” claims GV
“Although in terms of numbers when food aggregators were looking Ravishankar, managing director,
our inflection point came about a year at ways in which they could integrate Sequoia Capital India Advisors.
back, I think the real inflection point their platforms with restaurants,
for the company was when we hired Faasos went ahead and did just that. too littlE or too much?
It is clear then that Faasos has
Only, it owned and controlled every
the eight entrepreneurs in residence,”
courtEsy: faasos says Barman. The decision of hiring part of the process. “Mobile changed managed to seamlessly integrate
the technology with the physical
everything,” admits Barman.
through the FER programme enabled
The change enabled Faasos to
process of bringing the food to a
them to add seven new co-founders
consumer’s doorstep. However, this
go from one end of the spectrum
to the company. The results, he
48 | FORBES INDIA DECEMBER 11, 2015