Consumer
Wingreens raised Series B private equity funding from responsAbility Investments AG and Sequoia
About
Wingreens
Wingreens Farms Private Limited was incorporated in 2011 by Anju Srivastava and Arjun Srivastava and is a leading player in India’s fast growing “Better for you” food and beverage market. Its products span over 180 SKUs and include a wide range of signature dips, spreads, sauces, pita chips and bakery products. Wingreens has a distribution footprint that spans multiple channels across over 140 cities in India. Wingreens Farms’ mission is to develop an inclusive business model which addresses the biggest deadlocks that have paralyzed Indian society for centuries. Through demonstration and adoption of scientific farming techniques, Wingreens empowers farmers while providing them a stable source of income. The WIN of Wingreens stands for the Women’s Initiative Network which has brought underprivileged women out of their homes and empowered them and skilled them to make world class handmade food products. Wingreens has a unique integrated business model that starts from the farm and provides “Better for you” innovative products that meet the needs of the evolving new age consumer.
responsAbility Investments AG
responsAbility Investments AG is a leading asset manager in the field of development investments and manages a range of investment vehicles that supply private debt and private equity to sustainable portfolio companies in the agriculture, energy and finance sector of emerging economies. responsAbility has USD 3 billion of assets under management invested in 540 companies in 90 countries. Founded in 2003, the company is headquartered in Zurich and has local offices in Bangkok, Geneva, Hong Kong, Lima, Luxembourg, Mumbai, Nairobi, Oslo and Paris. Its shareholders include a number of reputable institutions in the Swiss financial market and its own employees. responsAbility is regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA.
Sequoia
Sequoia helps daring founders build legendary companies, from idea to IPO and beyond. Sequoia India operates in Southeast Asia and India where they actively partner with founders from a wide range of companies, across categories, including BYJUs, Carousell, Druva, GO-JEK, OYO Rooms, Tokopedia, Truecaller, Zilingo, Zomato and more. In partnering with Sequoia, startups benefit from 47 years of tribal knowledge and lessons learned working with companies like Airbnb, Alibaba, Apple, Dropbox, Google, JD.com, LinkedIn, Meituan and Stripe early on. From the beginning, non-profits have been the backbone of their LP base, which means founders’ accomplishments make a meaningful difference. The majority of their profits – over $16 billion since 2000 alone – are returned to great causes, like the Ford Foundation, Mayo Clinic and MIT.
Background
We are pleased to announce that our client, Wingreens Farms Private Limited (“Wingreens”), a leading player in India’s fast growing “Better for you” Food & Beverage market, has raised funding from Zurich based private equity fund responsAbility Investments AG and Sequoia.
Starting off as a category creator in fresh dips in India to becoming a multi category company in just eight years, Wingreens has always been at the forefront on innovation. At present, consumers can get access to Wingreens products in over 140 cities, across 1,300+ modern trade stores and 9,000+ general trade stores.
Wingreens, which currently employs over 300 women across their production facilities and stores, plans to use the investment to expand back-end farming and food processing model and further employ and empower a larger section of under-privileged women.
Taking advantage of the massive market potential, the company will also make further investments in marketing and strategic acquisitions as well as develop new product lines – with 40+ new SKUs slated to be added to the current 180.
Veda Corporate Advisors (“VedaCorp”) was the exclusive financial advisor to the Company and its shareholders. VedaCorp provided comprehensive transaction advisory services including deal structuring and negotiation of key commercial terms, leading to the successful closure of the transaction.
This marks VedaCorp’s 3rd transaction in the Consumer & Agri space in the current year. This also marks VedaCorp’s 14th transaction overall in the broader Consumer & Agri space and reaffirms our credentials as a leading advisor in this segment.
Arjun Srivastava
Founder & Director, Wingreens Farms Private Limited
“Wingreens has demonstrated excellent execution capabilities and has built significant scale across product categories in a short period with optimal use of capital. This investment will further solidify their dominance in the fast growing dips segment and also provide impetus in their endeavor towards becoming India’s largest food & beverage company”
Atul Saraogi
Associate Director, Veda Corporate Advisors