From Egg Rolls to Unicorn

What happens when you mix your love for food with a passion for entrepreneurship. It creates a billion dollar company! Well, at least, for Jaydeep Burman.

In the early 2000’s Jaydeep was a typical Bengali boy who loved academics and Bengali food. He completed his engineering from Jadhavpur University and later his MBA from IIM Lucknow. After his MBA, he started selling TV sets for Onida, which he soon realized wasn’t his calling. So, he joined an e-learning company, Brainvisa Technologies, and got posted in the UK for business development. 

The experience planted the seeds of entrepreneurship. But soon he began missing home food. So, he thought why not combine his love of entrepreneurship and food. And he returned to India and opened an egg roll joint in Kolkata, called Faasos. The joint was not an immediate success but it was a start. Two years later, Barman left for France to pursue his second MBA from INSEAD and later joined consulting firm McKinsey in London. Five years later, in 2011, he was  back in India. Faasos by then was profitable. 

In the next five years, Faasos made steady progress. Revenues jumped from ₹4 crore in 2012 to ₹62 crore in 2016; but so did the losses which jumped from ₹2 crore to ₹105 crore. Burman soon realized it was due to high rentals for the outlets, which were as high as ₹1 lac per month for some outlets.  A survey conducted by Faasos revealed that 73% of consumers admitted that they had never seen a Faasos store as they mostly ordered it online. “This was a lightbulb moment,” says Barman. He decided to shut down all stores, and move to cloud kitchens, changing the business model to delivery-only. 

In 2018, Faasos was renamed Rebel Foods. Next, he decided to roll out multiple cloud kitchen brands. He launched a biryani brand, Behrouz, and a pizza brand, Oven Story. Both of which became a popular brand. In total, he introduced 11 cloud kitchen brands.

While many businesses suffered during the pandemic, Faasos thrived as people preferred to order food online than going to a restaurant. Revenues skyrocketed to ₹561 crore in 2020; losses also stabilized and the company expanded to 35 cities with 320 cloud kitchens.

In October 2021, Rebel Foods became the 31st Indian startup to achieve unicorn status after being valued at $1.4 billion. It currently operates over 450 kitchens in 10 countries, including Indonesia, the UAE and the UK. 

Come to think of it, it all started because a Bengali boy living abroad started missing home cooked foods.