New Delhi/January 27th 2022: Agility Ventures has invested an undisclosed amount as a seed round in Good Fettle, a Mumbai-based F&B brand. The company pioneered the concept of low-calorie ice cream in India in April 2019.
A brainchild of cousin-duo, Akhil Gupta and Ayush Gupta to satiate their weakness for something sweet and healthy, Good Fettle taps into the increasing health awareness trend of low-calorie ice creams, the craze for which is huge abroad. In August 2018, the founders started off their entrepreneurial journey by ordering an ice cream maker and learning to make regular ice creams on YouTube. They then hired a consultant who introduced them to a commercial facility where they could run trials on a larger scale. After eight months of R&D and a few blasts in the kitchen, they cracked the perfect product and launched Good Fettle in April of 2019, to become the first low-calorie ice cream brand in the country. Each 125ml scoop of this ice cream consists of about 65-75 calories vis-à-vis traditional ice creams, which are about 200 calories per scoop. It does not compromise on taste and is a great source of fiber and protein.
“We try and stay connected with our consumers on a regular basis to understand their feedback and develop new products. We figured that consumers love our products, but they also wanted to control their portion sizes. So in May 2021, we developed the concept of Good Fettle Minis, which are again India’s first no-added-sugar crunchy bite-sized ice creams and come in 6 different flavours, each containing less than 17 calories per piece. The concept became a big hit. Based on the same philosophy, we have continued our journey of innovation and are rolling out another exciting category, i.e. Mini Cones, less than 70 calories per piece and just 1 gram of sugar,” reveals Akhil, who heads marketing, business development and hiring in Good Fettle.
The brand follows an omnichannel distribution strategy, selling across Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru through their own website, aggregators such as Swiggy and Zomato and through about 100 premium grocery stores, besides also having a kiosk in Mumbai. “We have a great number of loyal customers and have a high repeat rate. Our plan for the future is not just to become a strong national ice cream brand but also to expand into more ambient categories in the future with more focus on the D2C channel while keeping the same ideologies intact. The money raised will be used largely for new product development, marketing and increasing our footprint nationally,” says Ayush, who heads production, logistics and operations in Good Fettle.
The emergence of global low-calorie or healthy ice cream brands has been triggered off due to people leading wholesome cleaner lifestyles. Currently, China leads the ice cream industry in the world followed by the US. The organized Indian ice cream industry is pegged at USD 1.5 billion, which makes it the 5th largest and the fastest-growing market in the world with a Y-O-Y growth of 13%.
The Agility Ventures network, which is known to invest in startups or early-stage businesses in industries such as education, technology, healthcare, e-commerce, automobiles, electric vehicles, robotics, agri-tech and manufacturing among others, has seen record numbers of angel investors join the network last year.
Dhianu Das, co-founder, Agility Ventures, says, “We are not only ambitious about deploying INR 75 crore this year through Agility Ventures angel fund and investing it in over 50 startups, but also diversifying into different portfolios. Good Fettle is just the kind of product we are looking for – it is a first of its kind in India, it has young energy and a story around it with the Gupta cousins – Akhil and Ayush – behind it, has credibility and a very good growth record. What better product to invest on than this? In fact, we are confident that this seed investment will do wonders for us.”
Agility Ventures’ is a global network spread across 25 chapters in India, Canada, UAE, Australia and the UK as well. With a legal entity registered in America, they are also setting up a UAE-based team in February.
