Two Guwahati youth namely Rahul Hazarika and Abhilash Baruah, partners in a Guwahati based Food-tech Company just over 3 years old have received 2 rounds of funds from NEDFi Venture Capital Limited (NVCL) and the state government.
They started off humbly with a brand called ‘One Stop Kitchen’ in the year 2017 with a Cloud Kitchen concept, earlier unheard of by many. One Stop Kitchen (OSK) became Northeast’s first Cloud Kitchen and gained much popularity.
“I learnt to cook by watching YouTube videos and initially began with a Social Media Page where I posted food videos. I saw a lacuna here in the city for those willing to order food online as delivery apps were not very popular back then. Wanting to tap into that segment, very soon we launched our own Mobile Application and also started delivering food through Swiggy and Zomato” said Rahul Hazarika, founder of One Stop Kitchen.
Their Start-up got incubated under ‘Assam Start Up – The Nest’ which is a collaboration between IIM Calcutta (operating partner) and the Assam Government. ‘The nest’ is a state-of-the-art incubator with end to end ecosystems and facilities where startups receive various services such as business assistance, financial counselling, legal and regulatory guidance, and access to both mentors and investors. Most of these facilities can be availed by them free of cost.
Soon Rahul and Abhilash learnt about raising funds and raised their first round of Equity Investment from NEDFI Venture Capital Limited (NVCL) which is the venture capitalist branch of North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd. (NEDFI) that invests in start-ups.
“We raised our first round of investments a few weeks back besides which we also got our grants from Assam Government. We basically got two rounds of investments in a span of last 30 days,” said Abhilash. This makes them the first food tech start-up based out of Guwahati to have raised Venture Capital funds.
With this funding, the current estimated valuation of their company has gone up to $1 Million which amounts to over 7.5 crores in Indian rupees. It aims to grow its revenue and valuation by 4 times within the next 12 months
The One Stop Kitchen being a Multi-Brand Cloud Kitchen currently has OSK, House of Biryani & HealthyCo. operational. For those who love fusion food, House of Biryani – a dream come true for Biryani lovers to order Biryani in Kilograms, HealthyCo – for the health-conscious consumer with personalized healthy meal plans (keeping in mind calories, macro and micro-nutrients, etc).
They plan to launch DabbaCo very soon - An end to end corporate meal solution and OSK+ for hassle-free delivery of essentials to the doorstep of customers.
The duo have plans lined up to help ease ‘the new normal’ for consumers who wish to order a variety of food online, while ensuring utmost care and hygiene through a Zero Contact model from cooking, packaging to delivery and payment by eliminating third party apps for guaranteed safety of consumers.
"With the help of the funds we are revamping our entire operational module by introducing the best SOP's focusing into maintaining and serving hygienic food to our customers."
