Captain Fresh raises $3 million in seed funding from Matrix, others

Bengaluru: Captain Fresh, a business-to-business (B2B) marketplace for seafood, has raised $3 million in a seed funding round co-led by Matrix Partners India and Ankur Capital. Incubate Fund and angel investors, including Jupiter Money’s Jitendra Gupta and Pine Labs’ Amrish Rau, also participated in the round.

Captain Fresh, founded in 2019 by Utham Gowda, supplies fresh water fish and seafood to more than 550 retailers across general and modern trade, as well as to online meat and seafood retailers. It is present in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Mangaluru and Visakhapatnam.

“We are digitally transforming the highly inefficient fresh fish and seafood supply chain in India by aggregating the fragmented retail demand across the country and linking them to the small fishermen and farmers throughout the Indian coast,” Gowda said. The company has witnessed 10x revenue growth in the last 18 months, taking it closer to the $1 million per month revenue milestone, he said.


The startup will utilise the fresh funding to deepen its sourcing and distribution networks, apart from investing in people and technology.

The seafood market in India is estimated to grow to $60 billion by 2024, Captain Fresh said, adding that it wants to become a leading player in this space. It is organising the $30 billion seafood supply chain in India by promising to provide better quality fish at more competitive prices compared to unorganised channels.

“As a result of their tech-driven approach and focus on reduction in wastage, they have seen rapid adoption across channels,” said Tarun Davda, managing director at Matrix Partners India.