Mukunda Foods Pvt. Ltd, which manufactures tabletop dosa-making machines, has received a strategic investment from Ncubate Capital Partners, the venture capital arm of Gurugram-headquartered SAR Group.
Ncubate Capital Partners said in a statement that the investment has paved the way for Mukunda’s earliest investor, Indian Angel Network (IAN), to make an exit. It did not, however, disclose the financial details of the transaction.
Mukunda Foods will use the fresh capital for expansion and R&D initiatives, the statement added.
The Bengaluru-based company had first raised funding from IAN, a national network of angel investors investing in startups and early-stage ventures, in 2013.
The angel network had invested an additional sum of around Rs 1 crore in the company earlier this year, according to VCCEdge, the research arm of News Corp VCCircle.
Founded in 2014, Mukunda Foods’ proprietary product is DOSAMATIC. The machine is being used by more than 1,000 customers in over 20 countries, the statement said. Its customers include IBIS Hotels across India, Comesum outlets under IRCTC, ITC hotels, A2B, Indian Army and Indian Navy.
"We now look forward to making rapid strides in terms of expanding our market reach, carrying out faster iteration of product development cycles and having access to a robust supply chain along with management and financial support from our strategic investor," said Eshwar Vikas, chief executive officer and co-founder of Mukunda Foods.
IAN exit
This marks the angel network’s fifth exit in this financial year, the others being Knowcross, Uniphore, Kwench and Sanshadow.
IAN’s internal rate of return (IRR) over an eight-year period has been 40% with a failure rate of less than 10%, the statement added.
Last year, the angel network hit the first close of its eponymous IAN Fund at Rs 175 crore (around $27 million) to invest in sectors including healthcare and medical devices, software-as-a-service (SaaS), fintech, big data, artificial intelligence, and hardware.
Its advisory committee includes former Infosys chief executive Kris Gopalakrishnan, Hero Enterprise chairman Sunil Munjal, and Narayana Hrudayalaya chairman Dr Devi Shetty.
Ncubate Capital Partners
The VC firm invests in early-stage ventures. Its parent SAR Group is primarily engaged in water purifiers (Livpure), clean tech, and automotive batteries (Livguard).
Last month, it invested in My Finance Care Advisors Pvt. Ltd, which runs online loans marketplace MyLoanCare.
In February this year, the firm led an investment in shared-living space provider CoLive, owned by CoLife Advisory Pvt. Ltd.
In the same month, VCCircle reported that SAR Group had invested in Chennai-based clean-tech startup Air OK Technologies.
