The 21st century is the golden age of female entrepreneurs in India. In the last few years, the rate of women entrepreneurs has been growing at a tremendous pace.
Since 2010 India has seen female entrepreneurs taking charge in the field of fashion, travel and food industry etc. Businesswomen like Suchi Mukherjee, Richa Kar, and Rashmi Dagar are some of the torchbearers who inspire many aspiring entrepreneurs. Today we will talk about one such Businesswoman Rashmi Daga, who left her high profile job to become an entrepreneur.
Rashmi Daga:
Rashmi Daga is the founder of FreshMenu. FreshMenu is one of the fastest growing online kitchens in India. Started its operation in 2014 from Bengaluru, the company has spread its wings to 3 different cities across India which include Mumbai, Delhi, and Gurgaon in the span of fewer than 3 years.
What is FreshMenu:
FreshMenu is an online restaurant. It is different from Swiggy or Zomato as FreshMenu is not a food aggregator. FreshMenu has its own kitchens, a team of expert chefs and a fleet of delivery boys. FreshMenu provides international cuisines at your doorstep in few minutes. FreshMenu has its own website and mobile app to collect orders and you can also find it on various food aggregator platforms like Zomato, and UberEats etc.
Rashmi Daga Early Life:
Rashmi was born and brought up Delhi. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Delhi School of Engineering. After that, she went to IIM Ahmedabad to for her business studies. Rashmi began her professional career as a Business Manager at IBM in 2003.
Professional Life:
Rashmi has gathered the wide range of experience before forming FreshMenu. After completing her post graduation from IIM Ahmedabad she joined IBM as a Business Manager. Then she went joined various organizations like LifeScan and TutorVista.
Rashmi gained her e-commerce experience while working for the companies like Bluestone.com and Olacabs.com. Her last job was with Olacabs. She left the job in 2014 and started her entrepreneurial journey.
The inception of FreshMenu:
Rashmi says that the business choice sprang from her own love for cooking food. But the restaurant business was not feasible. That is when Rashmi thought of starting a freshly-made, chef-cooked gourmet meals in a box.
The first step was to search right vendors for the supply of ingredients and then to onboard quality chefs. The next stage was to set up a functional kitchen followed by designing perfect packaging and finally the perfect delivery chain.
Journey So Far:
Started in 2014 with single kitchen setup, Rashmi has brought FeshMenu to 4 different cities across India with more than 25 fully functional kitchens. The idea is backed by one of the biggest investors like Zodius Capital and LightSpeed Venture Partners.
FreshMenu has raised around 21 Million Dollars so far in two rounds of investment. FreshMenu is also planning to venture into content marketing by releasing a food magazine. The company has strong social media presence with 2.5 lakh followers on Twitter and Facebook.
