Bajo Foods, the parent company of keto brand – Lo! Foods, has raised funding of $2 million for its two new first of their kind product ranges in India -  DiabeSmart and Protein Chef.  Mount Judi Ventures is the lead anchor in this funding round, its first investment in the FMCG space. Strong investors participated in this fundraiser, including S Ramadorai, vice-chancellor, TCS; KP Balaraj, founder, KPB Trust (Former co-founder of Sequoia Capital India and WestBridge Capital). With this funding, the FMCG start-up expects to grow by 3.5 times in the next 18 months. 

Bajo Foods plans to use the fundraise for brand building of its new product ranges and expanding their channels to offline retail, B2B and hospitals. Bajo will also look to bolster its leadership team in branding and revenue generation to drive their growth ambitions. 

Aiming to impact health at scale, Bajo Foods mission is to reduce the amount of carbohydrates that India consumes to 50 per cent (from 75 to 85 %). With their new product lines, they intend to serve 100 million Indians by making scientifically backed and tested low-carb products. 

DiabeSmart, which is a new brand built specifically for Diabetics is the first Diabetes specialist food product range at scale. The products have been tested to have a 35-50% lower blood glucose spike compared  to regular food products. With an expected monthly household spends of just 800 Rs it is a cost-effective solution to manage diabetes. Protein chef, another brand that has been soft launched, provides a low carb high protein powder, that can be added to cooking. Its plant-based, no-chemical product range aims to solve for protein deficiency in India, based on the Indian food habits at a 60 per cent lower cost to consumers.  These products are available for purchase on the company's website and eCommerce marketplaces- Flipkart and Amazon. FMCG company plans to soon expand its reach to potential customers through its offline stores.     

Speaking about the fundraising, Sudarshan Gangrade, chief executive officer, Bajo Foods, said, “India is referred to as the Diabetes Capital of the World. This fundraising is for our two newly built innovative product ranges, DiabeSmart and Protein Chef. The investment will expand the reach to the targeted audience and accelerate our growth, helping us in our vision of positively impacting the health of Indians.”

On the funding KP Balaraj, founder, KPB Trust, (Former co-founder of Sequoia Capital India and WestBridge Capital) said, “The Diabetes and Protein market segments that Bajo Foods has built products for is extremely large. The company has built clearly differentiated products with high Gross margins structure. With a strong team and founder, we believe Bajo Foods has a long term play in the Indian Packaged Foods segment.”

Amit Sharma, Sunrise Foods that sold to ITC recently added, “The quality of the Product range along with the gap in the market has me convinced that Bajo Foods has a niche that could make it into a very large Brand that most key players would be very interested in.”