#32- Why we decided to invest in Fab Box
One of the best parts of early-stage investing is when you can instantly connect with the founders! Someone lucky would get to have one such connection in a year. Malpani Ventures had this connection in early 2020, when we met Devang.
One of our former founders Chinmoy (exit from AllizHealth, now building HooLiv) introduced his batchmate at Babson, Devang by saying:
..what is particularly impressive is the resilience in turning around the business..
Manish, our CIO, had the chance to munch on the snacks of Fab Box a few months before this introduction, and he quickly agreed to the meeting. Our entire team was at the meeting (something we always do the first time we meet an entrepreneur), and boy are we glad we did!
Devang went on to share his journey of being an entrepreneur in his family business, moving on to school at Babson, and returning back to India with a eureka moment! He first hand created dozens of variations, and kilos of healthy snacks himself in order to find the right ingredients and combinations!
“When some of the people first tasted what I had made, they spat it out!” laughed Devang
But a pivot, years of bootstrapped learnings, and thousands of happy customers later, Fab Box found its feet in the team of Devang, Parag & Ameya - three friends from college! We found this very exciting, and as part of our diligence, I spoke to their college professor Ms Tuli, who fondly remembered them as fantastic students who always took initiative! Mind you, this is over a decade after they graduated! That spoke a lot about how the trio can maintain and build relationships.
We loved the energy Devang brought in the first meeting. And more than that, we loved the box of munchings he brought along. Suckers for free stuff eh? The entire duration of the 90-minute meeting was filled with conversations and crunching noises.
Devang brings with him the strong execution skills required to build a business from the ground up. Parag has been instrumental in setting the distribution and operations strategy at Paperboat. Ameya, most recently the Director of Post Graduate programs at ISME, is a fantastic growth hacker. We believe this team has what it takes to be successful. A sneak-peak of their execution and efficiency was their topline which was almost identical to their nearest competitor, with less than 5% of capital at their disposal.
Fab Box might have been our quickest decision - from introduction to decision in under a week! Fab Box closed their round led by Inflection Point Ventures, with participation from Malpani Ventures, and a whole bunch of extremely passionate and supportive angels.
Fab Box is one of the very few consumer businesses in the Malpani Ventures portfolio, but the learnings of initiative, passion, and resilience we get from the team at Fab Box might be second-to-none.
If you are inspired by their journey to making healthy snacking yummy, check them out here!