Foodstories is an omnichannel gourmet food retail platform that sells curated groceries, ingredients, and food-led experiences through stores and digital channels. The Foodstories funding round brings in ₹50 crore, led by Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, with participation from existing investor Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office. The gap it’s chasing is obvious: traditional grocery feels transactional, while premium food buyers increasingly want curation, discovery, and a reason to step into a store at all. Founded in 2024 by sisters Ashni Biyani and Avni Biyani, the company now has a presence in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.
Kamath’s bet isn’t on a plain grocery chain. It’s on a company trying to turn food shopping into a category of its own — part retail, part discovery. Part lifestyle brand. That’s a much harder business to build. But if it works, it can be a lot more defensible than just selling the same SKUs everyone else has.
What is Foodstories and how does it work?
Foodstories is a premium food platform where a customer can shop curated groceries online, order delivery in supported cities, or walk into a store built around browsing, tasting, and food storytelling. Its assortment spans gourmet pantry items and fresh produce. It also sells bakery, beverages, meats, cheeses, spices, oils, snacks, and other specialty ingredients sourced from both Indian makers and global brands.
What makes it feel different is the way the retail layer is packaged. The Mumbai flagship launched with That Grocery Café, That Bev Bar, and That Bake Shop. So the same visit can move from shelf to plate to live baking. The store also includes a fresh pasta bar and live spice grinding. There’s also freshly roasted nuts, made-to-order nut butters, a working flour mill built with Two Brothers Organic Farms, and a Tea Library built around origin and craft.
Online matters too. Foodstories already delivers in Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. In Mumbai it launched a mobile app and city delivery setup promising orders in under 60 minutes. So the pitch isn’t just “come admire imported olive oil.” It’s “discover, learn, buy, and reorder without friction.”
Before this kind of model, premium grocery in India often meant hunting across separate stores, reseller shelves, or generic quick-commerce search results. Foodstories removes a lot of that manual effort by curating the assortment and wrapping it in content and retail theatre. Delivery is part of it.
Who are the founders behind Foodstories?
A comeback built on Foodhall
Ashni Biyani and Avni Biyani are the daughters of Future Group founder Kishore Biyani, and Foodstories is their return to food retail after the shutdown of Foodhall during Future Retail’s insolvency process in 2023. Their first Foodstories store opened in March 2024 at Ambience Mall in New Delhi’s Vasant Kunj, framed from day 1 as an omnichannel gourmet store and dining café.
That history matters.
Foodhall wasn’t a side project. It was one of India’s better-known premium food retail formats, launched in 2011 from Mumbai’s Palladium Mall and scaled to under 10 stores before the parent company’s problems pulled it down. Foodstories looks a lot like the sisters’ second shot at the same broad consumer — but with a heavier digital layer and an experience-first retail thesis.
Why the Biyani sisters fit this market
Avni’s fit with this category is straightforward. She joined Future Group in 2011 as the concept head of Foodhall and spent years building a premium food retail brand around imported ingredients, culinary education, and in-store discovery. Ashni came up through Future Ideas, Future Group’s innovation and incubation arm. There she worked on consumer insight, design thinking, and format development before later being associated with Future Consumer.
They’re also co-founders of Think9, a consumer brand-building platform launched with brand strategist Santosh Desai. That doesn’t automatically make Foodstories a winner. But it does mean the founders know brand architecture and premium positioning. They also understand how modern Indian consumption is changing. For a business like this, taste-making is part of operations.
Early traction, the round, and where rivals already are
Foodstories is live, not in beta. It has stores in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and now Mumbai, where it recently opened its flagship and plans another outlet in the city. By November 2025, the founders said the company had already seen triple-digit growth in its first year.
Now to the round itself. Foodstories has raised ₹50 crore from Nikhil Kamath, with Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office also participating. The company will use the capital for digital channels, delivery, and expanding its retail footprint. Ashni Biyani set the ambition plainly: “We’re building a ₹1,000 crore business.”
Competition is real, and it isn’t coming from one place. Nature’s Basket already operates over 35 stores and sells everything from artisanal bread and cheese to fresh produce and staples. Le Marché has built a premium grocery chain with 20,000 SKUs and a strong focus on butchery, imported foods, and live sections. Then there are the older alternatives: premium neighborhood grocers, gourmet sections inside larger supermarkets, and increasingly quick-commerce apps.
Foodstories is trying to separate itself by being less of a store and more of a food platform. The company brings together farmers, producers, bakers, chefs, and storytellers. It then turns that into retail, content, cafés, and delivery. That’s the edge Kamath seems to be backing — not just better shelves, but a brand consumers may actually remember.
Why does the Foodstories funding round matter?
Because this money is aimed at the three parts of the business that will decide whether Foodstories becomes a niche darling or a real scaled company: digital distribution, delivery, and store expansion. Those are expensive muscles to build. They matter.
For customers, the round should mean more convenience without flattening the brand into another catalogue. Better delivery coverage and stronger digital ordering can make the model easier to use between big “experience” visits. More stores can do the same. That matters a lot in food, where frequency is everything.
For Kamath, the thesis sounds clear. He called Foodstories one of the few platforms building “the real infrastructure” around better food and said, “The founders understand both the product and the business they’re building.” Investors don’t usually back premium retail because it looks fun. They back it when they think curation, habit, and margin can travel together.
How big is India’s gourmet food market?
Big already, and growing fast.
IMARC pegs India’s gourmet foods market at $5.4 billion in 2025 and expects it to hit $24.5 billion by 2034, which implies a 17.78% CAGR. In the same broad consumption shift, India’s online grocery market reached $11.4 billion in 2024 and is forecast to climb to $96.3 billion by 2033.
The trend underneath those numbers is simple. Urban consumers are spending more on premium, health-conscious, globally influenced food, and they want access through both specialty stores and digital channels. That’s why gourmet retail, boutique bakeries, premium dessert formats, and curated e-commerce are all expanding at the same time.
That’s why Foodstories is showing up now, not 10 years ago. India has more consumers who care about provenance, ingredient quality, and food as identity. The market is still tough, of course. Premium grocery can get crushed by rents, inventory complexity, and copycat assortments.
Final take on Foodstories funding
The Foodstories funding round gives the Biyani sisters fresh capital for a second attempt at premium food retail — this time with stores, delivery, and digital all tied together from the start. That’s a smarter setup than relying on footfall alone. The next thing to watch is whether Mumbai becomes more than a flashy flagship and turns into repeat demand that can support the company’s ₹1,000 crore ambition.
Read how NewCore raised a $66M seed led by Cyberstarts to build an identity platform that gives AI agents governed access, task-scoped permissions, and enterprise-grade security controls as businesses deploy software workers at scale.
FAQ
- What is the latest Foodstories funding round?
Foodstories has raised ₹50 crore in a funding round led by Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, with Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office also participating. The capital is earmarked for digital growth, delivery, and expanding the company’s retail footprint across cities. - How does Foodstories work as a business?
Foodstories combines premium food retail with digital commerce and in-person experiences. Customers can shop curated grocery and gourmet products online, use delivery in supported cities, or visit stores that also feature concepts like cafés, beverage bars, and live baking. - Who founded Foodstories?
Foodstories was founded in 2024 by sisters Ashni Biyani and Avni Biyani. Before this venture, they were closely tied to Foodhall and Future Group, and they also co-founded Think9, which gives them an unusual mix of retail, branding, and consumer-insight experience. - Is Foodstories a grocery startup or a D2C food brand?
It’s closer to an omnichannel gourmet retail platform than a single-brand D2C food company. The business sits in the premium grocery, gourmet foods, and experiential retail category, with a model that blends specialty stores, curated assortments, and online ordering.
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