Foodmandu, Nepal’s Largest Food Delivery Platform, Raises Fresh Funds

Nepal’s largest food delivery platform, Foodmandu, is expanding to more areas in the country after raising fresh yet undisclosed amount of funding from local private investment fund Team Ventures, according to an announcement.

Foodmandu said the Nepalese private investment fund had taken a 20-percent stake through mix of new shares and partial buy-out of True North Associates (TNA) ’s holding. TNA provided initial funding for Foodmandu in 2016.

Founded in 2010 by IT professional Manohar Adhikari, the food delivery platform delivers food from 500 plus restaurants across three cities of Kathmandu Valley through a pool of 200 riders. It also delivers beverages, cakes, and fresh vegetables from farmers’ markets, wholesalers, and leading hotels.

“We are encouraged by the confidence bestowed upon us by institutional investors time and again. The newly secured fund will be used primarily towards geographic expansion,” Adhikari, who is also the chief technology officer of the company, said.

The investment comes as a growing number of consumers in Nepal now prefer to order food online and have them delivered. A survey conducted by global investment bank UBS showed that nearly 54 percent of Nepalese preferred checking online food delivery platforms to directly contacting the restaurants. It also followed a series of investments in the food delivery space in Asia, including India.

“We are happy to have this opportunity to invest in a homegrown, new-economy business like Foodmandu and be a part of its future growth,” said Team Ventures founder and CEO Tenzin Gonsar.

Team Ventures is also the major shareholder of an institutional venture fund with controlling stake in multiple hydropower projects and the major promoter of an auto-servicing center chain supported by leading insurance companies.

The deal marks a partial exit of TNA, which made its first-ever investment in Foodmandu. The food delivery firm’s business grew almost ten times over the last four years.

The domestic private equity-venture capital firm invests in sector-disruptive companies across financial services, agriculture, and tech-enabled businesses.

“Partial exit from Foodmandu sends s strong signal to the bubbling alternative investments ecosystem in Nepal that these investments work,” Nidhaan Shrestha, investment manager at TNA, said.