Sharma says he is not looking at an exit before 10-15 years. “We need to build a business for life. Exit can or cannot happen depending on the right price,” he adds. Kinko’s was acquired by Fedex Corp. for $2.4 billion (Rs12,000 crore today) early in 2004.
An executive at a venture capital firm says Printo’s business model can benefit from clubbing services offered by different businesses under one umbrella, but there are challenges. “Each store needs to have a printing facility and hardware on the spot, so break-even for each store will take time. Also, the company needs an extensive geographic presence due to the nature of its business, so investments in terms of real estate and manpower will be high,” this executive said, requesting anonymity, since he had studied the Printo business plan for investment earlier.
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Lunch options for calorie watchers
Mumbai: Long years of being a bookworm, with very little exercise, began to show on Cyrus Driver in the form of an out-of-control waistline while working for a private equity (PE) arm of JPMorgan Chase and Co. in Singapore.
The Mumbaiite realized that eating healthy while putting in long hours at work was a tough task. “The only way to do that was to have a healthy meal in the right portions delivered to my desk,” he says. That realization and an entrepreneurial streak saw him return to India in mid-2004 and start his own meals delivery service for the calorie-conscious in Mumbai, Goodlife Integrated Fitness Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Under the brand name CalorieCare, it made its first delivery in September 2005, and has since grown to supply between 600 and 1,000 meals a day, depending on the season.
With around 50 people—dieticians, delivery boys and chefs—running the show now, his customers can choose from a mix of 500 recipes and 70 meal plans. “All our recipes and meal plans are fed into a proprietary software, which can automatically track calorie content,” says Driver, who is also a director in Helix Investments Co., a PE investment vehicle of New York’s Cullman family and Bloomingdale Properties Inc., a US-based investment and real estate company.
Driver uses his own delivery boys as well as the Mumbai dabbawallas’ (tiffin suppliers) network to reach his customers. Supplying primarily to offices during lunch hour, CalorieCare managed to break even earlier this year.
In the works is an expansion to Bangalore and New Delhi, for which Driver has tied up finances from Helix, details of which he did not disclose.
The benefits of sourcing in a city-specific centralized kitchen will help Driver’s business, but growth will depend on how efficiently the company distributes meals and manages customer expectations, says Rahul Chandra, director at Helion Ventures Pvt. Ltd, which manages a $350 million (Rs1,750 crore) India-focused fund that also invests in consumer services businesses.
In Mumbai, CalorieCare counts Vital Foods and Positive Health Tiffin (run by nutritionist Vijaya Venkat) among its competitors, and will be up against VLCC Healthcare Ltd’s calorie-counted outlet in Gurgaon when Driver expands to the so-called National Capital Region.