LightSaber Food Ventures Pvt. Ltd, which sells healthful food under the Snackible brand, has raised an undisclosed amount from Mumbai Angels Network and 1Crowd’s angels as well as fund.
As many as 21 investors from the Mumbai Angels Network participated in this round. The investors include Kishore Ganji, Akshay Chudasama, Hemant Sood and Pradyumna Dalmia, said Mumbai Angels Network in a release.
Mumbai-based LightSaber, founded in 2015 by Aditya Sanghavi, sells sweet, savoury, low-calories, high-fibre, high-protein, gluten-free and lactose-free snacks. The snacks include cream and onion whole-wheat thins, makhanas (roasted fox nuts), dark chocolate ragi cookies, ready-to-eat whole-wheat waffles and baked bhakarwadi.
Snackible sells through both online and offline channels.
The company’s products are sold through retail stores in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, which include Godrej Nature’s Basket, Foodhall and LeMarche.
In April 2017, VCCircle reported that Snackible had raised $175,000 (Rs 1.12 crore) in an angel round.
Investors
Last month, Mumbai Angels Network had invested in Pune-based fruit snack brand Frubites.
Mumbai Angels Network boasts more than 300 investors and 120-plus portfolio companies.
Its recent bets include healthcare startup Docturnal, and media startup NewsBytes (given follow-on funding).
1Crowd, which was launched in 2015, is an equity crowdfunding platform whose angel investors include Ganesh Natarajan, chairman, 5F World; Aniruddha Malpani, an IVF (in vitro fertilisation) specialist; and Krishnakumar Natarajan, co-founder and executive chairman of infotech firm Mindtree.
Smoodies, which makes fruit and vegetable smoothies, raised $500,000 (Rs 3.4 crore) in a pre-Series A round from 1Crowd, the company’s co-founder Anusha Bhushan told VCCircle in June.
In March, 1Crowd marked the first close its debut angel fund at Rs 23 crore ($3.5 million).
The fund is positioned to co-invest with the equity crowdfunding platform. The investment in Smoodies was done on a 30:70 ratio, where the platform anchored the investment. However, the fund will account for 50% of investments after the second close, Anup Kuruvilla, co-founder of 1Crowd, said.
The platform has made investments in about 20 firms including urban logistics services firm Mojro, realty-tech startup Zipgrid, community building platform Fourth Ambit and advertising-technology startup Proximit Media India.
The fund is largely sector-agnostic.
Deals in snacks space
Several deals have been reported in the snacks space.
In June, VCCircle reported that homegrown private equity firm Rabo Equity Advisors had invested money in nutrition bar maker Naturell India.
