The Gourmet Jar (Apeksha Gourmet Jar Pvt. Ltd.), a Noida-based leading artisanal brand of Spreads, Dips, Preserves, Sauces & Pestos, today announced that it has raised USD 150K funding in the round led by DevX Venture Fund, the investment arm of DevX Co-working & Accelerator. The round also saw re-participation of the existing investors which shows the trust of Investors in the brand. The brand’s vision is to offer a wide range of products for the discerning customer who values quality above everything else. The Gourmet Jar, founded in 2012, follows a high-quality, Farm-to-Jar and user-centric approach in developing their products for creating a gourmet culinary and gastronomic experience at home. The 14000-sqft production facility in Noida has an all-women production team.
Speaking on the occasion, Ms Apeksha Jain, Founder –The Gourmet Jar (TGJ), said, “The funding from DVF comes at an exciting time as we are bullish on developing our online channels, introducing new products, strengthening our logistics and building even stronger customer networks. At The Gourmet Jar, we are obsessed on constantly delighting our customers by offering a variety of spreads, dips, pestos, sauces & preserves to bring out the magic in their dishes. We stand committed to driving our next wave of growth through online channels, stemming from our desires to integrate TGJ into our customer’s lifestyles. The funding will help to increase our customer base, expand production and synergise logistics along with growing our technology stack. We aim to being the brand of choice in more and more homes and the HoReCa segment as well and he funding is a definitive step in that direction”.
Commenting on the funding, Mr Umesh Uttamchandani, Co-founder & CGO, DevX, “We are excited to partner with team TGJ, given their passion and approach to business. At DVF (DevX Venture Fund) our investment approach largely revolves around having a strong founding team since that is what early-stage investing is all about. The Pandemic has both reawakened and reinforced the focus on home-kitchens, as customers seek newer tastes and experiences. Quality-conscious people are experimenting with newer tastes, recipes and condiments. The HoReCa segment as a whole too, is opening up to ethically sound brands who offer high quality products. Against this backdrop and taking into consideration TGJ’s strong product basket, the time was ripe for partnering with them. It is an ethical brand with strong production foundations, catered to by a women-only team and a robust farm-to-jar approach. Going forward we strongly anticipate a huge spurt in demand for the product-range and customer-focussed approach espoused by The Gourmet Jar. With people increasingly focussing on newer tastes and experiences, the segment can only grow bigger. At DVF we have specially created “ToRQ – a special division to focus on D2C segment”, because we strongly anticipate the next wave in growth to come in ventures in that space. The program provides a hand holding approach along with initial funding for aggressive growth and customer acquisition. We have also partnered with a few stakeholders and tech companies who can help the start-ups in our program to accelerate through their solution. Against this backdrop, our investment in The Gourmet Jar was a given.”
DevX Venture Fund invests early-stage start-ups, already having invested in XX ventures. Though sector agnostic, DVF’s investments so far are largely into Fintech, SaaS, Healthcare, PropTech, AgriTech and DeepTech. They not only invest in start-ups but also help them with rapid scaling through their existing network, strategy support and follow-on fundraising. DVF is part of DeVX co-working & Accelerator, Gujarat’s top and largest provider in the Co-working and Managed Office Space segment, founded in September 2017 by 3 entrepreneurs Rushit, Umesh, Parth (the RUPaiyya trio as they are known in the ecosystem) and Dev Information Technology Ltd.
Source: Business World
