Healthy snacks startup, Open Secret has raised $10 million (Rs 78 crore) in a Series B round of funding led by sector-agnostic fund Ananta Capital.
The round also saw participation from the company’s existing investors, Matrix Partners India and Sixth Sense Ventures along with Gautam Kumra, chairman - Asia at Mckinsey & Company.
The freshly infused capital will be used to launch more products, hiring, scaling up capabilities in tech and expanding omni-channel distribution presence.
““There has been a structural shift in consumer behaviour - India has been a supply-constrained market and with the Open Secret platform, we want to address that. We are on a path to become a leading snacking destination by un-junking snacks in India which is a $15 billion industry,” said Ahana Gautam, co-founder and chief executive officer at Open Secret.
The company claims that it has added 9 new product categories over the last 9 months and has experienced 10 times growth over the past year driven by strong consumer demand across its expanding portfolio.
“We believe that the post-covid consumer's preference for healthy snacks has increased considerably and there is momentous white space in the category,” said Lovkesh Kapoor, managing partner at Ananta Capital.
Open Secret, operated by ImmaculateBites Pvt. Ltd, was launched by Gautam and Udit Kejriwal in 2019. Gautam, an alumnus of IIT-Bombay, had earlier worked with Procter & Gamble and General Mills before floating the venture. Kejriwal, an IIT-Kharagpur graduate, had been previously associated with P&G and McKinsey.
Open Secret primarily offers cookies, chips nuts, chocolates, cereals and many more categories and is currently available through their own website, multiple e-commerce platforms and across over 3,000 offline stores pan India.
The company secured Rs 18 crore in funding led by Sixth Sense Ventures in July 2021.
Prior to this funding round, Open Secret had raised an undisclosed amount from Matrix Partners and a clutch of affluent individuals including Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma. Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal and Godrej Consumer’s CEO, Vivek Gambhir had also invested.
In the broader snacks category, Happilo had raised $25 million (around Rs 186 crore) in a fresh round from homegrown private equity fund Motilal Oswal Private Equity (MOPE) in February this year.
