Kerala Banana Chips Brand Beyond Snacks Raises $5.98M, Secures Shark Tank India Deal

Beyond Snacks is an internet-based company that specializes in selling banana chips. They offer a variety of flavoured banana chip products, including Salted, Pepper, Cream and Onion. The company claims their banana chips are healthy, as they are free from trans fats, unsaturated fats and cholesterol. Additionally, beyond Snacks operates in the business-to-consumer (B2C) market, focusing on the retail, food and agriculture tech, food and agriculture, and consumer goods segments.

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Manas Madhu is the co-founder of Beyond Snack, a plant-based savory snacks brand that aims to provide authentic Kerala banana chips to the global market. As a first-generation entrepreneur with an MBA in Operations Management, Manas is responsible for the company’s marketing and strategy under his leadership as the Managing Director. Beyond Snack delivers on its promise to offer premium quality banana chips worldwide, and Manas has set an ambitious five-year plan to grow the company into a Rs 1500 crore (around $200 million) brand in the next 5 years.

Manas Madhu featured his Kerala Banana Chips on the popular TV show Shark Tank India. Two Sharks, Ashneer Grover and Aman Gupta, were very impressed with the Kerala Banana Chips from Beyond Snack. They decided to invest ₹50 lakhs (5 million Indian rupees) in exchange for a 2.5% equity stake in the company. After the Shark Tank deal, Beyond Snack has been generating significant revenue. The company is now making a profit of ₹1 crore (10 million Indian rupees) per year.

Beyond Snacks has raised a total of $5.98 million in funding over 6 different funding rounds. The first time Beyond Snacks raised funding was on December 22, 2020. The most recent funding round was a Seed round on July 27, 2023. In this latest Seed round, the company raised $3.5 million. This latest $3.5 million Seed round was led by an investor called NABVENTURES.

The company has 10 institutional investors, which are larger, professional investment firms. The institutional investors in Beyond Snacks include:

• NABVENTURES
• Luckbox
• VC

NABVENTURES is the largest of these institutional investors in Beyond Snacks. Additionally, Beyond Snacks has 55 individual angel investors, including Aman Gupta. Angel investors are typically wealthy individuals who provide early-stage funding to startup companies.

Beyond Snacks has 36 employees currently, which is almost double the number of employees they had a year ago. The company has experienced a substantial increase in its workforce, growing by 89.5% compared to the previous year.

Beyond Snacks has a total of 2 competitors in the market. Among these 3 companies (including Beyond Snacks), Beyond Snacks ranks 1st in the competition. One of Beyond Snacks’ competitors, Crizpo, is a funded company, while the other competitor is unfunded. In total, Beyond Snacks and its 2 competitors have raised over $5.99 million in funding across 6 funding rounds, involving 65 different investors. None of the companies in this competitive set are considered “Unicorns” – privately held startups valued at over $1 billion.

• Founders: The founders of Beyond Snacks hold 24.49% of the company’s shares, which are worth around INR 24.8 crore (approximately $3.3 million) as of the latest report on July 28, 2023.
• Funds: Investment funds own the majority of Beyond Snacks’s shares, accounting for 26.53% of the total ownership.
• Other People: they hold 24.49% of the company’s shares.
• Angel Investors: Angel investors, hold 12.35% of Beyond Snacks’s shares.
• Enterprises: Enterprises, hold a small percentage of 0.12% in the company.

Shark Tank India is a reality show where entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of investors, seeking funding and mentorship to grow their ventures.