Captain Fresh, an India-based tech-enabled business to business (B2B) animal protein marketplace, announced Monday that it has raised $50 million in a Series C investment round co-led by Prosus Ventures and Tiger Global, both existing investors.

Other participants in this round also included existing investors Accel India, Matrix Partners India, Ankur Capital, and Incubate Fund, Captain Fresh said in a statement.

Captain Fresh is a farm to retail platform for animal protein–fish, seafood and sheep. It procures directly from the agents/farmers, and supplies across B2B, business to rural (B2R) and business to business to consumer (B2B2C) channels, providing superior quality fishes and other animal protein at competitive pricing compared to organized channels.

The company started out in 2019 as a seafood marketplace focusing on aggregating the fragmented retail demand across the country and linking it to the small fishermen and farmers throughout the Indian coast. Its vision has now expanded to build a sizeable animal protein platform with a play across multi-channel, multi-geography, multi-specie and multi-format retail.

“We have made significant strides in the last 12 months and believe we have the foundation in place to keep up with our hyper-growth trajectory. We are further deepening our role on the supply side by leveraging our understanding of supply communities in India and transforming it into a digital platform with a focus on content, community and commerce for fishermen, agents and farmers. This would be our market-entry beachhead as we look to foray into Africa, Middle East and other parts of Asia, led by our proprietary distribution and fulfilment engines,” said Utham Gowda, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Captain Fresh.

Founded in 2019 by Utham Gowda, Captain Fresh has rapidly emerged as a preferred monetization partner for supplier communities across the Indian coast. This has been made possible by a tech-enabled distribution network that spans across 20+ cities and more than 2,500 retail businesses. It has become a reliable alternative to the wholesale wet markets in these cities for suppliers and B2B customers. It is leveraging deep technologies to lessen the high amount of friction in the traditional trade and optimize the value accrued to the supply communities. It leverages its bid engine, proprietary quality inspection and satellite technology ensuring match-making of demand and supply.

“We invested behind the platform potential of Captain Fresh and are pleased with the rapid strides they have made on this front. On the supply side, from a seafood marketplace, they are now entering into the larger animal protein industry. On the demand side as well, they have expanded their focus by adding new export markets. All this is enabled by the same underlying tech infrastructure highlighting the platform potential. Captain Fresh continues to execute very well and at a rapid pace. We are delighted to support their mission and partner in their growth,” said Ashutosh Sharma, Head of Investments, India, Prosus Ventures.

Captain Fresh continues to extend leadership on the demand side with value propositions for different types of retailer persona ranging from digitally native platforms, retail stores and hawkers, across Tier-I, Tier-II and Tier-III markets. Its fulfilment engine dominates the market with best-in-class fill rates and on-time delivery across heterogenous demand segments. The company has more than doubled its revenues since its Series B fundraise in December 2021.

“We are thrilled by the growth demonstrated by Captain Fresh over the last 12 months. We are excited to double down and deepen our partnership as the Company looks to go global,” said John Curtius, Partner at Tiger Global.

Meanwhile, Barath Shankar Subramanian and Rachit Parekh from Accel said :”Since we first invested the company has grown over 7 times in a short timeframe while expanding their supply to include other animal proteins and also entering the export market. We are delighted to deepen our partnership and we expect the business to continue scaling rapidly.”

Sudipto Sannigrahi, Principal of Matrix India also said :“Captain Fresh is disrupting the $400 billion global fresh fish, seafood and animal protein market by creating a tech-enabled B2B supply chain that delivers better quality at competitive prices. Captain Fresh has grown exponentially over the last 12 months and we are excited to be deepening our partnership with Utham, and to continue partnering with him on the journey ahead.”

Elluminate Capital and DSK Legal acted as the exclusive financial and legal advisors to Captain Fresh on the transaction.

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