Back to feeds

Did not get a single order for 1.5 years and runs a 2000 CR sauce brand today. 1. At 15, Viraj Bahl wanted to join the family food packaging business, Fun Foods. But his dad gave him a clear condition—Earn enough livelihood to care for their four-member family, and then only he could join. He was not good at studies, so he was thinking about how to fulfil this condition. 🤔 2. When he was to join college, he saw a newspaper ad about the shipping giant "AP Moller Maersk - Singapore Polytechnic" joint program, where they would select 46 students and pay them for their education. In contrast, students would work on one of their ships in an ocean. He knew his time had come. 🙌 3. He worked hard and was selected among the 46 students. Within three years, he became a senior manager, earning Rs 4 lakhs monthly. He knew this could meet his condition and joined Fun Foods in 2002. Within six years, German food maker Dr Oetker acquired Fun Foods for 100 CR. But Viraj had failed. 👇 4. By 2012, Viraj had spent 50% of his acquisition money on a failed restaurant. He wanted to make the remaining money count. Viraj saw that India had only two sauces—tomato ketchup and mayonnaise. People asked their relatives from the USA and Canada to bring new flavours. Demand was there, but there was no supply. 🤔 5. He experimented with flavours like South West Chipotle and Hot Sweet Tomato Chilli. However, he realised that fast food chains did not have healthy tomatoes and mayonnaise sauces. With the remaining money, he bought a manufacturing facility in Saket. On 12th October 2012, Veeba was born. 🚀 6. Idea was simple ⏩ Serve preservative-free sauces to restaurants and fast-food chains with 75% less fat and 50% less sugar. With players like Kissan and Maggi, breaking in was difficult. He begged multiple food chains for orders but found no customers. And his fortunes changed after 1.5 years. ✅ 7. In June 2014, Dominoz ordered 70,000 tonnes of sauces monthly. After that, Viraj converted Yum Food, with brands like KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. By 2016, Veeba scaled to a revenue of 65 CR and raised 40 CR from Saama Capital and Verlinvest at a valuation of 400 CR. 💰 8. Veeba scaled to a revenue of 100 CR, and Viraj realised it was now time to switch to the large B2C market. With physical tasting sessions around Tier 1 cities and targeting the mass premium market at 30% higher prices than Kissan and Maggi, magic happened. 🪄 9. By 2019, Veeba had scaled to a revenue of 290 CR and raised another 150 CR to become an 1855 CR company. It grew even during the Covid and expanded to 700 towns, 28 depots, and over 1.5 lakh shops. By 2022, Veeba had scaled to a revenue of 542 CR. 📉 10. Today, Veeba has revenue of 811 CR and 80+ products across 14 categories, and will cross 1000 CR revenue this year. ➡️Viraj Bahl did not get a single order for 1.5 years and today he works with Burger King, Domino's, Nandos and PVR. A saucy success indeed. 🙏