SUMMARY
- Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal, alumni of IIM Indore, founded the milk delivery startup country Delight in 2015.
- Lacking prior experience, the founders personally delivered milk door-to-door in their initial days, using customer surveys to identify the gap.
- Started with 15,000 liters, now serves 10 million people monthly with over 5 lakh subscribers across 18 cities in 11 states.
In India 50 years ago, almost every household had cattle, which made it easy to access pure, fresh, unadulterated milk for everyone. Even today, after so many decades, the demand for milk and dairy products is huge. According to a survey report, Delhi alone consumes 70 liters of milk daily.
The dairy industry in India covers a used market with an estimated value of around $70 million. But since then, natural milk production in urban areas has sharply declined, making it hard for general people to access fresh dairy products.
An IIM Indore graduate, Chakradhar Gade, identified this problem and decided to start his venture in 2013. As they didn’t have any prior experience in this field, they conducted a door-to-door survey of the consumers, and the survey revealed that people were mostly getting adulterated and diluted milk, which was not scientifically tested.
To solve this problem, Chakradhar quit his successful corporate job and started Country Delight, a dairy brand based in Gurugram, with his IIM Indore batchmate Nitin Kaushal in 2015. The company sources milk from farmers and delivers natural, fresh, and unadulterated milk directly to its customers within 36 hours using its subscription-based model. It also supplies bread, ghee, other dairy products, and fruits and vegetables.
This Startup began its journey as a bootstrapped venture and dedicated the first 5 to 6 years to laying the foundation with INR 1 crore as capital. Now it delivers its dairy products to almost 10 million people monthly and has more than 5 lakh subscribers spread across 18 cities in 11 states in the country, including Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Bengaluru, and Pune.
Recently, the brand has raised Rs 76 crore (approximately $9 million) through a combination of debt and equity from Alteria Capital.
Over the years, this startup has shown excellent growth and financial evolution. In FY20, the company was valued at $145 million, with a total revenue of Rs. 177.5 crore and a loss of Rs. 68.5 crore. By FY21, the revenue nearly doubled to Rs. 320.7 crore, while losses decreased by over 50%, down to Rs. 28.2 crore, though the valuation remained the same at $145 million.
In FY22, the valuation escalated to $541 million, with revenue reaching Rs. 542.6 crore, although losses increased to Rs. 186.4 crore. FY23 saw further expansion, with a 66% growth rate pushing the valuation to $694 million and revenue to Rs. 900 crore.
By the first half of this fiscal year, the company’s valuation had reached $811 million, with revenue already at Rs. 650 crore, boosted by $300 million in new funding, positioning the startup for continued growth.
Country Delight is expanding its product range to include ghee, paneer, pulses, oils, yoghurt, and healthy smoothies. The company aims to focus on sustainable packaging and plant-based options to become a comprehensive D2C food and grocery provider.
It plans to increase non-milk product revenue to 60–70% in the next few years and achieve a 10-15% market share in North India within three years. With goals to go public by FY25 and acquire one million paying subscribers nationwide, Country Delight’s competitors include Milkmantra, Parag Dairy, and Akshayakalpa. Country Delight is preparing for long-term growth and market leadership.
