The Success Story Of Licious Founder will Motivate To Invest In Your Own Startup

When it comes to entrepreneur success stories, the one revolving around Licious easily takes the cake.

Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, friends turned partners in business, have bucked tradition & done it with panache.

As per information available online, they left their cushy corporate jobs to launch Licious, a gourmet meat brand that has grown from a Rs 3 crore annual turnover in 2015-16 to Rs 1000 crore in 2020-21. They want to make a profit of Rs 1500 crore in 2021-22.

Licious is now a unicorn and is valued at more than USD 1 billion following the most recent round of fundraising.

Abhay traveled to Bengaluru in 2004 to pursue his bachelor's degree in biotechnology and genetics. He also took a business management degree and went on to have a successful career in insurance risk management and the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) industry.

Vivek, 40, grew up in Chandigarh, completed his chartered accounting degree, and relocated to Bengaluru in 2004 to work for Tavant Technologies, a software firm. He later moved on from Tavant to Helion Ventures, a venture capital firm.

Because of their stable middle-class backgrounds (both their fathers retired from high positions in government professions) and how well they were performing in their jobs, some enterprises are regarded 'less suitable' for young men like Abhay and Vivek in our society.

Licious offers over 300 SKUs of fresh meat, fish, and eggs divided into three categories: raw and fresh, ready-to-cook, and ready-to-eat.

The products are tailored to the customer's preferences based on area and ethnicity. For example, thinly sliced seer fish for Chennai and a curated selection of fresh water and seafood for Mumbai/Kolkata could be included in the raw and fresh product category.

Abhay, a passionate meat eater, was the one who came up with the idea for the firm. Helion was our client while he was at Futurisk Insurance Broking in Chennai in 2010, and that's how he met Vivek.

Abhay & Vivek used to get together for dinners and talk about everything. They realized they were not interested in continuing their corporate careers. Both decided to launch a meat business because they both wanted to do something out of the box.

When Abhay suggested that they start something in the meat market in early 2015, Vivek had no idea what he was talking about

They spent time and effort learning the fundamentals, such as what constitutes good meat. How can one tell if the chicken is correct? What should the bird's weight be?

Abhay and Vivek were ready to start delivering excellent meat online after researching and analysing all facets of the market for a few months. Licious was born as a result.

Licious' initial team of five people made their first transaction in Bengaluru's Whitefield neighbourhood. Around this time, the company completed a formal fund-raise of half a million dollars from notable investors such as Kanwaljit Singh of Helion Ventures, Mohandas Pai of erstwhile Infosys, and Kaushal Agarwal of Amadeus Capital.

They held tasting sessions and events at apartment complexes as part of their marketing efforts, involving friends and families. This worked out well for them: word of mouth accounted for 70-75 percent of new client acquisition.

Licious has raised a total of $334 million in funding and has become India's first D2C Unicorn after receiving $52 million in funding from IIFL AMC's Late Stage Tech Fund.

Bengaluru, Hyderabad, NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Kochi, Puducherry, Vizag, Vijayawada, and Kolkata are among Licious' 14 Indian cities.

They have five processing facilities: two in Bengaluru, one in each of Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad, and one in each of Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad.

Licious grew from a small team of five to a massive workforce of over 3500 individuals today.