Online restaurant company Rebel Foods, which turned a unicorn recently after raising $175 million, said it will put in $150 million in “strategic" investments and acquisitions in India and abroad to scale partnerships with over 40 domestic and foreign food brands.
Rebel Foods operates more than 45 cloud kitchen brands through a combination of owned and partner brands in 10 countries. In all, it operates more than 4,000 online restaurants in 450 kitchen locations. Its in-house brands include Faasos, Behrouz Biryani and Oven Story Pizza.
Under the initiative, Rebel is looking to invest in, scale and grow third-party food brands, adopting the now famous Thrasio-like model for food. This model works when companies aggregate small third-party brands and scale them.
“Through this initiative, we aim to invest in some of the most loved food brands and help them scale through our extensive network to all parts of the country and even internationally like it’s already happening with SLAY, Wendy’s, Biryani Blues and others," said Raghav Joshi, co-founder at Rebel Foods.
Rebel operates a technology platform called Rebel Operating System (OS), which helps its partner brands scale their presence across a network of more than 70 cities in India and elsewhere.
In the past, Rebel Foods has scaled brands such as SLAY Coffee, Naturals Ice Cream, Mad Over Donuts and Wendy’s through its Rebel Launcher programme.
Mint had earlier reported that Rebel Foods plans to open 50-100 physical outlets at the food courts dotting India’s highways, airports and office complexes.