GoodDot is one of the first global firms to breach all of the essential hurdles of taste, affordability, and shelf-stability at room temperature, and with this investment and assistance from Sixth Sense Venture, India’s largest consumer venture fund, the company is perfectly placed for rapid development. This is India’s first venture capital investment in the plant-based meat industry.
On the strength of increased emphasis and spend on R&D, marketing, and channel expansion, the investment would enable Udaipur-based GoodDot to further solidify its leading role in the plant-based meat field in India while also supporting its international growth.
“We are delighted to have concluded this round of funding with Sixth Sense Ventures, led by Nikhil Vora. The synergy and alignment of both the vision and the expertise with Nikhil and the Sixth Sense team is something which excites us beyond words. This is the epitome of an ESG-focussed investment. We are confident this strong partnership will enable GoodDot to position itself as a force to be reckoned within the space of plant-based meats not only in India but across the world,” says Abhishek Sinha, CEO & Co-founder of GoodDot.
Nikhil Vora, Founder and CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures, said, “we believe that going forward, consumption preferences will evolve increasingly fast towards meat alternatives on the back of health, ecological, or compassion-related reasons. In the US, plant-based meat has grown over $1B in sales, growing 40% y-o-y, while the animal-based meat industry is degrowing. Validation by HORECA is critical for a new food category, and with endorsement by leaders such as Dominos and other institutional customers, GoodDot has emerged to be the leader in plant-based meat in India. This fits well into Sixth Sense’s thesis of investing in the Consumer of Tomorrow, with evolved consumption habits, with the company catering directly to this change in behavior through alternative meat products. Super elated to be part of a business which is trying to make the world a compassionate place.”
Globally, meat substitutes is a $20 billion market, which seems to have just scratched the surface and is all set to disrupt the $1.4 trillion organised meat industry. The pace of this disruption is expected to increase exponentially as the pandemic has accelerated the consumption of meat-alternative products globally. India is steadily acquiring a taste for plant-based meat substitutes and this space is primed for exponential growth in the coming days and the country could also play as an important supplier for the global plant-based meat industry, considering the availability of skilled manpower and abundant Agri and Agri-processing resources.
J R Laddha Financial Services was the exclusive advisor to the deal. Satish Ganega, VP- Investment Banking, who was advising GoodDot on the transaction says, “Excited to see the ace investor place confidence in a breakthrough product and a passionate team. It would be interesting to see this collaboration take on the global industry titans in the coming years.
