Atomic Capital's investment in Doodhvale Farms

Milk is central to Indian culture. Everyone consumes milk, some as a source of protein, some as an additive to tea/coffee, and others as an ingredient to other food products. In spite of this, India is a supply constrained market when it comes to milk. About 40% of the market is organized cooperatives sourcing from multiple micro-sources making it really difficult to maintain high procurement standards, while 60% continues to be unorganized. Additionally, the macro trend of wellness and aspiration pervades a daily consumption category like dairy as well.?

Several new age players have built tech/marketing to make the consumer experience better, but the real determinant of quality is what happens at the cattle farms. Quality of supply and robustness of the supply-chain are the real moats when it comes to the dairy category. Building strong consumer tech and operating cattle farms at international standards are two very different skill sets.

When we met Aman J Jain Sanjay Jain Ishu Jain and Sudhir jain at Doodhvale Farms, there were several things that excited us. Few of them being:

1.???? Sourcing excellence: Doodhvale Farms sources its milk from select captive dedicated farms. This allows it to maintain superior cattle rearing practices including high feed quality and free roaming that makes the production ethical yet high quality. It maintains stringent SOPs for rearing and procurement, which are easier to implement and maintain given its captive and concentrated supply base

2.???? Vertical integration: Doodhvale Farms is vertically integrated from farm to table. This allows it to maintain strong control on inputs and control the supply chain in a perishables category like dairy. The captive farms enable high quality of product, and the captive delivery enables high quality customer experience.

3.???? Transparency: Doodhvale Farms maintains transparency to customers in terms of the quality of its milk. Consumers can view outcomes of specific numerical tests adulteration, dilution, and milk quality which are done daily and for each sourcing centre. This not only builds consumer trust, but also keeps the brand accountable and honest.

4.???? Relationship with customer: Doodhvale delivers fresh milk to its consumers every single day. Thus they have steady direct touchpoints with the consumer. All operations, front and back of the house, are driven via their own app. This allows them to form a strong relationship and trust with the consumer, with potential of scaling other daily essentials with time. Even as the business looks to expand into other channels, we expect the strong relationship with the consumer to continue. ?

5.???? Customer love: They have earned consumer love as is evident from its strong retention and public reviews. Earning consumer trust in a daily consumption category like dairy takes incredible amounts of consistency and execution rigour which the team has displayed right from its inception.

6.???? Capital efficiency: Being vertically integrated, controlling the first and last mile, as well as sourcing from select farms vs scattered micro-sources, and incredible retention enables the company to have an advantageous margin structure and be highly capital efficient.

7.???? Alignment with playbook: The founding team brings the right set of complementary skills ranging from sourcing to tech. This coupled with the business quality, margin advantage, and relationship with the customer aligns with our operating VC playbook of backing brands where we can marry supply side signals with a strong product to accelerate a company’s journey and unlock scale.?

We truly believe this fundraise will enable the business to 10x in 2-3 years, and are very excited about working with the team.?