Protein Pantry Raises Rs 9 Crore Seed to Scale High-Protein Frozen Food

Protein Pantry, an Indian clean-label frozen food brand, has raised Rs 9 crore in a seed round led by Sharrp Ventures, the Mariwala family office, with participation from Peercheque, Consumer Collective by Atrium, and Indian Silicon Valley Capital, alongside a group of angel investors including Varun Alagh, Rishubh Satiya, Avnish Anand, Arush Chopra, and Saurabh Munjal.

Co-founded in November of last year by Disha Bhattacharya and Prashanth Bhushan, Protein Pantry makes high-protein, ready-to-cook frozen products for Indian households using kitchen-shelf ingredients, explicitly avoiding refined flour, preservatives, and palm oil common in the packaged food category. Its products are formulated to a 1:10 protein-to-calorie ratio and are manufactured entirely in-house rather than through a third-party contract manufacturer, giving the company direct control over ingredient sourcing and quality at an early stage most food startups outsource.

The fresh capital will primarily fund setting up and scaling the company's manufacturing unit, alongside continued investment in research and development and supply chain. Over the next 12 to 24 months, Protein Pantry is targeting availability across major Indian cities through both direct-to-consumer and quick commerce channels, along with an expansion of its product range across additional categories beyond its initial frozen food lineup.

The high-protein and clean-label food categories have grown quickly in urban India over the past few years, driven by rising health consciousness among younger, higher-income consumers and the rapid build-out of quick commerce delivery infrastructure that makes frozen and chilled products far more accessible than they were even two years ago. Sharrp Ventures, backed by the Mariwala family behind Marico, has a track record of backing consumer and wellness brands specifically, making it a strategically aligned lead investor rather than a purely financial one for a company building in packaged food.

The decision to manufacture entirely in-house from day one is a more capital-intensive path than contracting production out, but it gives Protein Pantry direct control over the ingredient-quality claims central to its clean-label positioning, a meaningful differentiator in a category where consumers increasingly scrutinize ingredient lists closely.

The involvement of a roster of well-known consumer-brand founders and operators as angel investors, alongside Sharrp Ventures as lead, points to a company drawing heavily on operator expertise from within the Indian consumer packaged goods sector rather than purely financial backers, a common pattern for early-stage food and beverage startups where manufacturing, distribution, and regulatory know-how from experienced operators can matter as much as capital at the seed stage. With quick commerce platforms now delivering to a large share of urban Indian households within minutes, frozen and chilled categories that were historically difficult to distribute at scale have become significantly more viable, a shift Protein Pantry's go-to-market plan is built to take advantage of directly.

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