To be an Integral part of the Company’s Advisory Board
Kolkata, June 15, 2018: The Managing Director of Fabindia, Mr. William Bissell has invested a minority stake in his personal capacity into home grown Quick Service Restaurant chain Wow! Momo founded in 2008 by college batch mates Sagar Daryani, Binod Homagai & Miftaur Rahman of Kolkata.
With his huge experience of running a profitable retail chain, William would be sitting in the advisory board of Wow! Momo & guide the fastly growing retail momo chain along with their mentors Sanjeev Bhikchandani, founder of Naukri.com, Ashvin Chadha, co-founder of Anicut Capital & Padma Shri winner Saurabh Srivastava who is also the founder of The Indian Angel Network (IAN) &Nasscom. While Saurabh took a part exit in Wow! Momo’s series B round of Fund Raise from Lighthouse Funds, Sanjeev & Ashvin made an Additional Investment into the company along with Lighthouse in 2017 backing the promoters for a second time.
After empowering rural artisans by bringing their products into the mainstream market through the unique business model of Fabindia, William Bissell has also turned into an angel & strategic investor over the years and has made several investments in his personal capacity, Wow! Momo being the latest one.
Excited on this new investment, William Bissell commented“Sagar and his colleagues at Wow Momo have in a very short time created an exciting, well priced, profitable new concept in fast food. Their entrepreneurship, innovation and hard work have built Wow Momo into a brand that the New India loves. I’m excited to be an investor and advisor on their journey”
The current Investment has estimated the company to be valued over INR 300 crores.
SagarDaryani, founder & CEO at Wow! Momo is thrilled about the Investment & feels humbled on for having Williamas an advisory board member of Wow! Momo. Speaking on this recent development, Sagar commented, “Mr. Bissell has produced his products in the rural areas & sold them to the large urban markets. He’s considered a legend in retail & with his indepth knowledge about India, we are super confident that his guidance will not only help us expand but will also make our roots stronger as we institutionalize to grow from a start up brand to an esteemed organisation”.
Apart from Williams recent inclusion, Wow! Momo currently has some prominent names in their Cap table.
The company raised their first round of equity funding of Rs. 10 crores in 2015 from India Angel Network (IAN) lead by Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani (founder of Naukri.com), Mr. Saurabh Shristava (Padma Shri winner) & Ashvin Chadha (co-founder Anicut Capital) at a Rs. 100 crore valuation.This was the biggest Investment by the IAN back then in terms of deal size & number of Investors & continues to be their biggest deal till date. A total of 93 Investors participated in the IAN round. Wow! Momo doubled their angel investors’ money in 18 months and provided a partial exit to the IAN at an IRR of over 50 % in their series B round of equity funding last year in June at a Rs.230 Crore valuation. The new investors then – Lighthouse Funds, lead by their partner, Mr. Sachin Bhartiya are still strongly Invested with the company. Currently 71 individuals from IAN are still invested into the company. Some of the prominent names backing the QSR chain in their personal capacity apart from Sanjeev, Saurabh &Willam mentioned above are Mr. Sunil Kant Mumnaj, Chairman of Hero Enterprises, Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys, Mr. Arvind Singhal, Chairman of Technopack& Mr. Raman Roy, current Chairman of Nasscom to name a few.
Mentioning about a large number of marquee investors in their cap table, Sagar says, “We’ve always believed that funding & funders are both like ammunitions. One needs to be funding ready to use them in the right manner. A strong internal &extrenal team will enable you to expand & deploy the money profitably. As an entrepreneur, as you grow, its only upto you as to how smartly you use your funders & their extensive network to add to the the growth of your brand. Someone who’s been there & done that is indeed a role model. In our case Sanjeev, Saurabh & Ashvin at IAN along with Sean & Sachin at Lighthouse have always been on the front foot with their advice & entrepreneurial opinions. William would smartly add to this list.”
In the last fiscal the company opened 65 new stores to close FY 17-18 on a 168 stores nationally. The company revenue grew from 49 crores to 75 crores with an estimated EBITDA of around 9 % and a SSSG of over 13 %.
Wow! Momo intends to grow more aggressively this year. The team have set themselves a challenging target to open 100 new Wow! Momo stores & enter a few newer markets as well.
Sachin Bhartiya, partner at Lighthouse Funds said, “We at Lighthouse are really excited to see the progress being made by the wow team of Wow!Momo led by wow Sagar. They have created a product which is both side of the plate and Centre of the plate and that’s the best part of their concept which we love.”
The Company has not onlyascertained steady growth for theirbusiness over the years, but also innovated & invented unique ways of servingMomo delicacies to India. Their Menu caters to 12 different flavours ofmomos available in Steamed, Fried, Pan Fried, tandoori & Sizzler Momo (served with Noodles or Rice) variants available largely in white& brown flour. The latest innovation being the Baked Momo Au’gratin. The MoBurg (Momo Burgergers) are juicy & filling and available as a combo for an addition of only Rs. 45. The brand also claims to sells over 25,000 pieces of Chocolate momos every week as desserts.
“There is a lot more of Wow! stuff to be revealed in the near future. Stay tuned” equips Sagar.
Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire)
