When Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta founded Licious in 2015, they aimed to fix one of India’s most underserved yet massive markets — fresh meat and seafood. In a country where unorganized meat retail dominated and hygiene was inconsistent, they saw an opportunity to deliver trust, transparency, and taste.
From its beginnings in Bengaluru, Licious built a farm-to-fork cold-chain network, ensuring fresh, temperature-controlled delivery from sourcing to doorstep. Every product — from chicken and mutton to fish and ready-to-cook snacks — passes through rigorous quality checks and is handled in state-of-the-art processing centers.
By 2025, Licious has grown into a $1 billion unicorn, generating $300 million in annual revenue and processing over 1 million orders monthly across 40 cities. The company’s model rests on three pillars: quality, technology, and customer experience.
Licious built India’s first integrated cold-chain infrastructure for meat delivery, maintaining a constant temperature of 0–4°C throughout the supply chain — from farms to kitchens. This ensures that the meat never freezes or thaws, preserving freshness and flavor.
The startup also invested heavily in technology for inventory, demand prediction, and logistics, helping it reduce waste and deliver orders faster. Every order is traceable — from the source farm to the customer’s doorstep.
Its “Born to Meat” branding and sharp digital marketing have helped Licious transform meat consumption into a premium, lifestyle category. The platform has expanded from raw meat to ready-to-cook, marinades, and snacking segments, diversifying its product portfolio for urban consumers.
Licious’s customer loyalty is driven by its zero-compromise philosophy — delivering ethically sourced, 100% fresh, and chemical-free products. With over 2 million repeat customers, it’s become a symbol of consistency in India’s evolving food tech landscape.
The company’s impact extends beyond consumers. By building direct relationships with farmers and fishers, offering them fair prices and predictable demand, Licious has improved livelihoods across India’s protein supply chain.
Its co-founders, both first-generation entrepreneurs, brought complementary skills — Hanjura’s operations expertise and Gupta’s financial acumen. Together, they transformed an unorganized market into a tech-led, trusted ecosystem.
As of 2025, Licious competes in a $40 billion meat and seafood market, growing at double digits annually. It continues to invest in R&D for food safety, packaging, and sustainability, including biodegradable packaging and waste recycling initiatives.
The startup’s long-term vision is to become the world’s most loved meat brand, expanding globally while maintaining its core promise: freshness you can trust, delivered at your convenience.
Licious’s journey is more than a startup success — it’s a story of how technology, trust, and taste converged to modernize an ancient industry.
Last Updated on Saturday, October 25, 2025 7:36 pm by The Entrepreneur India Team
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