Rebel Foods Cloud Kitchen Raises $175M for $1.4B Valuation

Indian cloud kitchen Rebel Foods on Thursday (Oct. 7) announced the end of a $175 million fundraising round that values the company at $1.4 billion, up from $800 million last year, according to a TechCrunch report.

Rebel Foods will use the money to widen its global footprint beyond its dozen current markets and look into making acquisitions, as well as prepare to go public within the next couple of years, Chief Financial Officer Piyush Kakkad told the news outlet.

The latest funding round was led by Qatar Investment Authority, sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar. Existing investors Coatue and Evolvence also participated, and Sequoia Capital India and Goldman Sachs have also invested in Rebel Foods.

Rebel Foods is the third Indian unicorn — a private company valued at more than $1 billion — this week. It oversees more than 4,000 so-called internet restaurants that prepare food for delivery in 10 counties, including the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Malaysia.

“The big disruption that the cloud kitchen model brought about is that you don’t have to put up five real estates to run five different restaurants,” said Jaydeep Barman, founder and chief executive of Rebel Foods, in a virtual conference earlier this year.

“We are combining the best of both worlds — digital and physical — to understand how to expand a particular brand, to make unit economics work, and to ensure adequate supply chain and leveraging technology,” Ravi Golani, chief strategy officer at Rebel Foods, said in the report.

Related: With Kitchen United’s Zuul Acquisition, Ghost Kitchen Space Begins to Take Shape

Earlier this week, ghost kitchen company Kitchen United announced its acquisition of food delivery and virtual kitchen Zuul following its pairing with Kroger in August.

Zuul acquiring digital ordering platform Ontray Technology in January 2020 and raised $9 million to opening a virtual food hall in New York City. It debuted its virtual food hall software earlier this year as a standalone product for restaurant operators.