Rebel Foods, the cloud kitchen operator of Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, Oven Story and other brands is looking to invest ₹200 crore to expand its food court format EatSure, open more cloud kitchens and brand stores.

“The offline use case is not going to go away. Consumers will find reasons and opportunities to eat outside. We plan to open 100 EatSure food courts in 2-3 years,” said Sagar Kochhar, Co-Founder and CEO- EatSure, Rebel Foods. The company also plans to expand its footprint to 150-200 cities in India by 2028, he added.

“We are now making the brands accessible to tier 2 and tier 3 cities as well, while we further penetrate in tier 1 cities. The plan is to add a couple of dozen restaurants by December’24,” said Kochhar.

Eyes stock market listing

This comes at a time when the company expects to exit FY25 with profitability at an adjusted EBITDA level, with kitchens already profitable at the unit level and is eyeing to list in the Indian stock market.

“We plan go public within the next 18 to 24 months. Conversations with top bankers have already begun,” he added.

Rebel operates more than 450 cloud kitchens across 75 cities in India, the Middle East, North Africa, Indonesia, and the UK.

Last year, Rebel Foods teamed up with quick service restaurant (QSR) chain Wendy’s to introduce cloud kitchens and offline restaurants in India. It is now in discussions with several other global brands. It manages 160 Wendy’s fast-food chain outlets in India, and its food court format currently includes eight locations.

“We are looking at scaling up to 350 locations for Wendy’s in the next couple of years through our cloud kitchen as well as opening new outlets,” he noted.

Rebel is also looking to diversify its revenue chain as it will add more brands to its launcher platform that allows third-party restaurants to use its cloud kitchens.

Rebel Launcher

The company is in talks with new brands to collaborate under its Rebel Launcher vertical, which helps brands rapidly scale by offering supply chain support and full-stack technology solutions. To date, it has partnered with over 20 brands through this program, including Naturals, Bakingo, Anand Sweets, Mad Over Donuts, Narula’s, Daryaganj, Chaipoint, Big Wong, and MOPP.

The company is also looking to incubate new formats and categories.

“We have launched a new brand in the fried chicken category -- Fricken because we believe there are only one or two players in the market, and we can easily grab a good market share. Similarly, Behrouz Biryani is doing well in the UAE, and we are planning to take it to London,” he said.

Rebel Foods became a unicorn after it raised $175 million in 2021 led by the sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority at a valuation of $1.4 billion. In April last year, the company secured $9.1 million in a debt funding round from Northern Arc and Stride Ventures.

The company has reduced its losses by 42 per cent to ₹378 crore in FY24 from ₹657 crore in FY23, while generating a revenue of ₹1,420 crore in FY24, a 19 per cent increase from ₹1,195 crore in FY23.

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