The Silicon Review ^Asia

FreshToHome, a new e-commerce startup that delivers “100 percent” pure and fresh fish, chicken, and other kinds of meat, has raised $11 million in Series A funding round  led by CE Ventures, with participation from Kortschak Investments, Das Capital, Al-Nasser Holdings, M&S Partners, TTCER Partners,  and other Asia and Silicon Valley-based Investors. FreshToHome, founded by Shan Kadavil, is backed up by businessmen including David Krane, CEO of GV, Rajan Anandan, the former head of Google Southeast Asia, and Mark Pincus, chairman of Zynga.

Unfortunately, the perishables are laden with antibiotics and chemicals to increase their shelf life. Realizing that people aren’t consuming healthy vegetables and meat, Kadavil started FreshToHome, along with Mathew Joseph, a veteran having 30 years of experience in the field of fish exports.

The startup is presently delivering in major cities including Bengaluru, Chennai, Kochi, Trivandrum, Delhi and NCR, etc. and has around 400,000 customers. The company does business with 1,500 fishermen across 125 coasts.

Kadavil said that the idea is to empower farmers and local fishermen. “Farmers and fishermen bid with us (as mandated by local laws) electronically using the app,” he added. There is a major cost reduction as it attempts to eliminate the middlemen, working directly with the cultivators. It has built its own supply chain infrastructure having 100 trucks, 1,000 people associated with it, and 40 collection points.

The startup uses trains and planes to transport inventory and is now one of the biggest clients of airlines like Spicejet and Indigo. FreshToHome is one of the largest e-retail platforms for meat in India.