[Funding]: Wow! Momo raises INR 45Cr debt funding from Anicut Capital

Wow! Momo Foods owns and operates two quick-service restaurant brands Wow! Momo and Wow! China. In an announcement, the company states to have raised 60 crores debt funding from Anicut capital. With this, it sees a bounce-back from the slowdown witnessed as the coronavirus crisis took hold. While a number of restaurant chains in India have filed for bankruptcy due to the on-going pandemic, Wow! Momo on the other hand continued to expand even at the time of global crisis.

It has launched a new business vertical during lockdown to new outlets. Further, it also became one of the fastest QSRs to bounce back during the economic slowdown. Wow! Momo currently has a total of 357+ stores across Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and Kolkata. Out of this 290+ are currently operational.

About the funding

Talking about the funding announcement, Sagar Daryani, CEO & Co-Founder at Wow! Momo Foods, commented,

“Ours has been a story of agility and adaptability. These crucial times may have brought our business down initially. But we always found new ways and undertook initiatives which helped us stay afloat. We have been more robust than ever with a change in business models; newer collaboration with Café Coffee Day to open Shop-In- Shop formats. Setting up new business verticals & a total of 31 new point of sale opening in the past 6 months. We have also taken a conscious call to shut down over 30 non-performing Outlets nationally & the compete focus is to get back to profitability at the earliest as was the scenario in Pre-Covid times ”

They plummeted to 10% of monthly business in April 2020 wrt February 2020. Then, to 65% of topline in September; the company is growing stronger with delivery business back to 180% of the pre-covid times. Wow! Momo recorded a whopping 3 lakhs online orders last month. The company expects to get back to 75 % to 80 % of Pre-Covid numbers in October. It also aims to touch 4 lakh online orders.

Wow! Momo has been backed by The Indian Angel Network & Light House Funds in the past. Last year the company was valued at over INR 860 crores by US-based Tiger Global with an infusion of INR 120 crores directly into the business & an additional 60 crores as a secondary partial exit to members of The Indian Angel Network who made a whopping 8x return against their initial investment.