Ghost Kitchens, an accelerator for delivery only brands, has taken a majority stake in internet restaurant brands QSR Brands India and Eathos Group, for an undisclosed amount.
QSR is valued at $5.5 million, while Eathos group is valued at $2.2 million.
Ghost Kitchens will provide capital, infrastructure, backend, marketing, and administration services to the two brands. It also plans to scale them up across multiple geographies over the next few months.
“The unit economics of cloud kitchen businesses can only be sustainable if the overhead expenses are drastically cut down. We are creating an infrastructure that can support multiple companies to scale quickly without reinventing the wheel,” said Karan Tanna, CEO and cofounder of Ghost Kitchens.
Cloud kitchens are delivery-only restaurants without a dine-in facility or walk-in customers.
Ghost Kitchens, founded in June last year and largely self-funded by food services business entrepreneur Tanna, is an investment and incubation company for startups in the cloud kitchen segment.
The company plan to partner at least 20 more brands across 12 cities and run about 300 internet restaurants.
“We are very keen to penetrate tier 2 and 3 cities of India. Our model of growth will be partnering with young entrepreneurs who have incubated potential scalable brands,” Tanna said.
QSR Brands owns at least five brands, including New York Waffles and Dinges, Starboy Pizzas and Shakes, and Hakka Makka, with over 130 active internet restaurants in four cities.
Eathos Group owns Biryani Hazir Ho, Bolo Tara Rara and Arey O sambhar, with over 20 internet restaurants in two cities.
Many emerging players, including CloudKitch, KitchenCentre, FoodCoWorks, KloudKitchen, Smart Co Kitchens, the Travis Kalanick-backed City Storage Systems and Flipkart-backed Shadowfax, have launched infrastructure businesses to offer food brands affordable, licensed and shared real estate space as well as marketing, technology, maintenance, licensing, and business expertise to open and launch brands on food delivery apps.
