Bengaluru: TagZ Foods, a premium GenZ snack company, today announced that it has raised an amount of INR 4 crores in Pre-series A funding from Agility Ventures and Dexter Angels. The fresh round of capital will be utilised for launching new product offerings, expanding distribution and production capacity. Eminent DTC and consumer brand founders such as Arjun Vaidya (Co-founder CEO of Dr Vaidya’s), Dharamveer Chouhan, Parth Choudhary, Mohanlal Menon and Dhruv Toshniwal also participated in the funding.
TagZ is an uber premium urban GenZ snack brand that crafts innovative, lip-smacking and fitter savoury snacks for a healthier and sustainable snacking experience. The GenZ brand led by Anish Basu Roy as Co-founder & CEO and Sagar Bhalotia as Co-founder, received a seed funding of INR 1.5 crore by a consortium led by 9 Unicorns VC in October 2020.
“We are deeply excited to partner with Agility Ventures and Dexter Angels in this journey towards building a truly premium and international snack brand in India as we move to the next orbit of strong growth in our DTC business,” said Anish Basu Roy, Co-founder & CEO, TagZFoods.
“Our mission is to help our GenZ consumers eat fitter and also to encourage them to lead a more active lifestyle. We want to help our consumers to pursue their passions for travel, music, sports, and the outdoors, while our products make sure they are never far from fit and sustainable snacking options.”, he further added.
Prashant Narang, Co-founder of Agility Ventures, said, “We see a tremendous opportunity for growth in TagZ. In just a matter of 15 months, the brand has demonstrated fierce advancement by covering various milestones, such as product innovation, geographical reach, onboarding sales channel partners, online presence, as well as environmental sensitivity. Our investment is an acknowledgement of the brand’s strategic bright future.”
TagZ set to strengthen its market-size
TagZ is the first brand in the country to manufacture popped potato chips with 50% less fat in 5 lip-smacking flavours. The GenZ snack brand will be strengthening its business, both product-wise and distribution wise. Soon an affordable range of popped potato chips with 50% less fat from the brand stable will be launched for consumer delight. It also plans to launch premium international flavours of popped potato chips, enhance its range of fit bar snacks and add exciting flavours to its range of international gourmet dips.
TagZ with its enhanced product offerings, production capacity and distribution will soon be entering international markets as well.
Sustainability for sustainable growth
TagZ already has committed itself to recycle as much plastic as they consume and hence become the first potato chip brand to be plastic neutral. TagZ will soon be shunning single-use plastic and replacing it with reusable PET canisters to reduce its plastic footprint. They will be pioneering the sustainable and biodegradable packaging movement for the packaged food industry.
“We have a young, deeply motivated team that believes in building not just a premium brand but an environmentally sustainable business as well. We believe that growth that does not align with the environment is not viable growth. We want to be the pioneers of this sustainable shift in the packaged food industry,” said Sagar Bhalotia, Co-founder, Tagz Foods.
Adding on the competition in the snacks market, he says “With our core competence to build and market differentiated products which invariably find strong product-market-fit and strong growth opportunities, TagZ is geared to carve its niche market. There are white spaces in the snack market and we are targeting just that.”
Growth story
The premium GenZ snack brand in its modest journey of 15 months has recorded stellar growth and basked in enormous consumer love for its innovative and fit snacks. The brand expanded its presence from just one city to 6 major cities of India, from available on one online e-commerce platform to currently on almost all leading platforms that includes Amazon, Big Basket, Swiggy, Grofers, etc. These have added volumes to its successfully running DTC website. Retail business presence also grew from just 50 to whopping 2000+ retailers across India.
Brand’s flagship product, Popped potato chips with 50% less fat, was launched in only 3 flavours but now is offered in 5 exciting flavours. These include Masala Trekkin’, Salt Trippin’, Cream Onion Divin’ and Beer n Barbeque. It also launched fit bar snacks and a range of international gourmet dips to expand the experience of healthy snacking. Its fit snacks have already been able to provide a lip-smacking snack experience to over 3 lakh consumers across the country.
