Tiger Global-backed B2B seafood chain Captain Fresh is aiming to end this fiscal year with a profitable bottomline and revenue growth in the range of $500-550 million, compared to $168 million in FY24. The startup has plans to hit the public markets in FY26.
“We started as an India-to-India business and then we became India-to-global, wherein we were buying from India and selling in the global markets. But towards the end of FY24 we started being global-to-global and FY25 is the first full year where this new supply chain will play out for us,” founder and CEO Utham Gowda told FE in an interaction.
The company primarily exports shrimps, salmons and a few other marine species mostly from India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Phillipines. It also procures supply from some European and Latin American markets. More than 99% of the company’s revenue comes from selling in the global markets, with a largely majority of it- about 60%- coming from the US and another 30% from European markets.
To bolster its globally spread out supply chain, it has recently acquired two companies in the seafood space – Poland-based Koral and Illinois-based CenSea. Gowda added that he is currently looking to make further acquisitions in the white fish and tuna industry.
In India, Captain Fresh has a comparatively small distribution business, and hence does not compete directly with D2C meat and seafood startups such as Licious. Gowda noted that the company has, in the past, tried to focus on quick-commerce channel but never liked the unit economics in that business.
“I don’t think India is large enough in terms of profit pool for us to build an organised or a branded business for this category, because for the same product we get almost 2-3x higher realisation in the US and European market,” he added.
For now, the company has been Ebitda profitable for the first two quarters of the fiscal, and PAT profitable for the September quarter. It is now focusing on maintaining this trend, expanding its profits next year and doubling its Ebitda from $20-25 million during this fiscal to $40-50 million in FY26.
As per a report by Moneycontrol, the company is looking to raise $400 million through its IPO at a valuation of $1.3-1.5 billion and has picked Bank of America and Axis Capital as its bankers. It is also looking to raise a pre-IPO round of $50-60 million at a valuation of $800 million. Currently, it has a valuation of $490 million, as per Tracxn data.
“Given that we are a venture-funded company, going public is a natural destiny for us as we have funds to provide exits to. With the IPO funds, we want to pay down the debt that we have on our books, which is close to $100-odd million and have growth capital as we look to scale,” Gowda said.