Food delivery startup, Yumist has shut shop, as the company failed to raise the next round of funding.
We are shutting shop today. We failed to raise the kind of capital that this business required while staying true to the customer problem.
From launching in a second city prematurely, or committing to a high growth, high burn model just because prospective investors wanted to see that back in 2015, or taking a tad bit too long to find the right business model, we made our mistakes. We learnt from these mistakes and recovered fast, but maybe not too fast.
Also, every company has a context in which it operates – the economic climate, investor sentiment, the sector one operates in. Essentially, there are external factors which one can’t really control. 2016 onwards, food tech (in the manner the term is loosely used) had amassed a notoriety with investors and media and became almost a dirty word. We failed in all our attempts to fundraise since then, as investors wanted to wait it out.
Last year, Yumist raised $2mn led by Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer ventures. The company, as the founder claims could have turned profitable by June 2018, but investors lost patience.
