Startup Deep Dive : MasterChow — revenue fell a third in FY25 even as losses widened

In the year to March 2025, MasterChow reported operating revenue of ₹25 crore (about $2.6 million) — down roughly a third from the ₹37.6 crore it booked a year earlier — even as its net loss widened close to 30% to ₹19.1 crore, per RoC filings reported by Inc42 in November 2025. For a Delhi brand that had grown almost 300% the year before and told investors it was chasing ₹200 crore in revenue by FY27, that is a jarring reset.

The company’s own explanation is that the headline fall is mostly an accounting change, not a demand collapse: it says it restated its accounts to strip out inter-branch sales under generally accepted accounting principles, a cleanup it could not apply retroactively to the FY24 number. But the losses are harder to wave away. They grew even as total expenses fell, because MasterChow chose to pour more into salaries and advertising while its top line was being re-based. This is the story of a founder pair who shut a six-outlet restaurant chain in the pandemic, rebuilt as a direct-to-consumer sauce and noodle brand, rode the quick-commerce wave, and are now spending heavily to buy the scale that would justify the story they have told investors.

Quick facts

What MasterChow does

MasterChow sells the pantry that a home cook needs to make restaurant-style Asian food without a restaurant. It is a digitally native, direct-to-consumer brand built around stir-fry sauces and condiments, with noodles, vinegars, chilli oil and ready-to-eat dips layered on top. Its promise is convenience with a premium finish — a jar and a packet that turn into a pan-Asian meal in minutes.

• Product range: began with six cooking sauces; by March 2025 the catalogue spanned “45 SKUs, including sauces, condiments, vinegar, noodles, and chilli oil” (Inc42, March 2025), with the company citing 35+ SKUs in November 2025.
• Customer: urban Indian households wanting quick, restaurant-style Asian meals at home; the company reported serving about 10 lakh (one million) users as of March 2025 (Inc42).
• Channels: its own D2C website plus marketplaces (Amazon, Flipkart, JioMart), quick-commerce apps (Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, BigBasket, Flipkart Minutes), and offline modern-trade shelves (Inc42, March–November 2025).
• Manufacturing: in-house production with fresh-ingredient sourcing rather than pure contract packing, per the company’s account (Inc42, March 2025).

The origin

MasterChow did not begin as a packaged-goods company. It began as a restaurant. Vidur Kataria, an engineer, returned to India from the UK in 2014 and teamed up with his school friend Sidhanth Madan to launch Wok Me, an Asian quick-service chain, in 2016 (Inc42, March 2025). Wok Me served bowl meals built on stir-fry sauces, and it grew to six outlets across Delhi and the National Capital Region (YourStory, May 2022).

The insight that became MasterChow came from behind the counter. Customers kept asking for the sauces themselves — the flavours were the thing people wanted to take home. When the pandemic forced the restaurants to close, the founders had both a problem and an answer: the dine-in business was gone, but the demand for the flavours was not. In 2020 they folded the restaurant learnings into a packaged brand, incorporating MasterChow Foods Private Limited in New Delhi on 21 November 2020 (ZaubaCorp) and bringing in Radhika Mittal as co-founder and chief financial officer. The bet was that a generation raised on delivery, and increasingly on K-dramas and pan-Asian cooking, would pay for the shortcut to making that food at home.

The struggle years

The first setback was existential and came before MasterChow existed as a brand. Wok Me, the six-outlet chain that had taken years to build, could not survive the pandemic’s dine-in shutdown and was wound down (Inc42, March 2025). The founders were left rebuilding from scratch, this time with no storefronts and a product that had to reach kitchens through couriers and marketplaces rather than a dining table.

The early D2C years were about proving the flavours could travel. By the time of its December 2021 seed round the company said it was shipping to 17,000 pin codes across 2,800 Indian cities and had served over 3 lakh families since inception, with revenue up roughly 10x in the preceding 12 months (Indian Retailer, December 2021). Traction was real, but off a tiny base.

The second, and more recent, setback is playing out in the accounts. After a breakout FY24, the reported top line went backwards in FY25 — down about a third to ₹25 crore — while the net loss widened to ₹19.1 crore (Inc42, November 2025). The company frames the revenue drop as an accounting reclassification rather than lost sales. Even granting that, the widening loss is a genuine strain: MasterChow was spending more to grow at the very moment its reported revenue was shrinking, and it has told investors that even a thin, single-digit positive EBITDA is not expected before FY27 (Inc42, November 2025). Profitability, in other words, is still years out.

The turning point

The clearest inflection was FY24, the year the brand went from a promising experiment to a business with real revenue. Operating revenue jumped from ₹10.1 crore in FY23 to ₹37.6 crore in FY24 — a rise of roughly 270–300% depending on which revenue base is used — as MasterChow leaned into quick commerce and widened its catalogue (Inc42, March and November 2025). That single year is what turned funders’ heads and set up the growth-capital chapter that followed.

Then came the money and the marketing to match. In November 2024 MasterChow raised its largest cheque, a $6.5 million Series A, and around the same time signed celebrity chef Ranveer Brar as brand ambassador (Inc42, November 2024). But the year after the breakout told a more complicated story: on the far side of the FY24 surge, FY25 revenue was restated down to ₹25 crore and the loss widened to ₹19.1 crore. The turning point, then, is double-edged — a genuine breakout in FY24, followed by a reset in FY25 that the company attributes to a cleaner way of counting sales, but which still coincided with heavier spending and a bigger loss.

The money behind it

MasterChow has raised across several rounds from a small group of consumer-focused investors. The exact lifetime total is reported differently by different trackers, which is worth flagging rather than smoothing over.

• Seed — December 2021: ₹3.5 crore (about $0.46 million) led by WEH Ventures, with angel investors Aditya Singh and Ravi Shroff; funds earmarked for manufacturing, product development, hiring and expansion (Business Standard and Indian Retailer, December 2021).
• 2022 round: $1.2 million raised in 2022 (Inc42, November 2024).
• Pre-Series A: $3.2 million, described by Inc42 as previously unreported at the time of the Series A disclosure (Inc42, November 2024).
• Series A — November 2024: $6.5 million led by Singapore-based Tanglin Venture Partners, with Peak XV Partners’ Surge, Anicut Capital and existing backer WEH Ventures; proceeds aimed at new products and offline expansion (Inc42, November 2024).
• Named backers to know: WEH Ventures (the earliest institutional believer, which kept backing the company across rounds), Tanglin Venture Partners (led the growth round), and Peak XV’s Surge (the accelerator arm of the former Sequoia Capital India), alongside Anicut Capital.

On the lifetime total, the sources diverge: Inc42 put cumulative funding at about $10 million at the time of the November 2024 Series A, then cited $8.2 million to date in its November 2025 write-up, while Tracxn’s profile lists $11.6 million across five rounds. No post-money valuation has been publicly disclosed in any source reviewed for this piece, so none is asserted here.

How it makes money

MasterChow earns by selling physical packaged food at a premium to what commodity sauces cost, and it reaches buyers through a stack of channels rather than one. The economics are those of a young consumer brand: gross margin on the jar and packet, minus the heavy cost of acquiring customers and paying platforms to sit on their shelves.

• Where the money comes in: unit sales of sauces, condiments, noodles and dips across its own website, marketplaces, quick-commerce apps and offline retail.
• The channel that matters most: “Quick commerce works best for us, with Blinkit being the leader,” co-founder Vidur Kataria told Inc42 (November 2025) — online channels account for about 90% of revenue.
• Where the cost sits: cost of materials consumed was ₹16.8 crore in FY25, but the swing factors are advertising and people — advertising and promotion of ₹11.9 crore (up 58% YoY) and employee benefits of ₹9.6 crore (up 70% YoY) in FY25 (Inc42, November 2025).
• The part people get wrong: the reported FY25 revenue fall is not, per the company, a demand collapse — it is a GAAP reclassification that removed inter-branch sales, which could not be applied to the FY24 comparison; the widening loss, by contrast, is a real function of stepped-up spend (Inc42, November 2025).
• The margin problem: with roughly ₹11.9 crore of advertising against ₹25 crore of FY25 revenue, marketing alone consumed close to half of reported sales — the core reason break-even is still being guided to FY27.

The numbers

Three years of reported figures, all from RoC filings as covered by Inc42, are shown below. Note that the FY25 revenue is restated under a GAAP reclassification that the company says was not applied to earlier years, so the FY24-to-FY25 comparison is not strictly like-for-like. Figures in ₹ crore.

• FY25 total income including other income was about ₹27 crore; total expenses were ₹46.2 crore, down 22.2% from ₹59.3 crore in FY24 (Inc42, November 2025).
• FY25 expense mix: materials ₹16.8 crore (down 46% YoY), other expenses ₹20.6 crore (44.6% of total), advertising ₹11.9 crore, employee benefits ₹9.6 crore (Inc42, November 2025).
• Forward targets (company-stated, not results): FY26 revenue of ₹72 crore — roughly 3x FY25 — an exit ARR of ₹120 crore, and ₹200 crore revenue in FY27, with single-digit positive EBITDA guided for FY27 (Inc42, November 2025). These are projections and should be read as such.
• At the time of the November 2024 Series A, the company put its ARR at about ₹50 crore (roughly $6 million) (Inc42, November 2024).

Where the money comes from

MasterChow’s revenue is overwhelmingly a digital story, and within digital, a quick-commerce story. The surprise, for a brand pushing “restaurant food at home”, is how little of the mix comes from its own storefront relative to third-party rails.

• Online vs offline: about 90% of revenue is online, roughly 10% offline, per the company (Inc42, November 2025).
• Within online: quick commerce leads, with Blinkit called out as the single biggest channel by co-founder Vidur Kataria (Inc42, November 2025); Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, BigBasket and Flipkart Minutes round out the set, alongside marketplaces Amazon, Flipkart and JioMart.
• Offline footprint: present in around 3,000 stores as of November 2025, up from about 2,500 modern-trade outlets in March 2025, with a stated target of 20,000 stores (Inc42, March and November 2025).
• Category positioning: co-founder Sidhanth Madan has described the aim as becoming the disruptor brand in what the company calls a “$3 billion ready-to-cook” opportunity, focused on Asian sauces and condiments (Indian Retailer, December 2021) — a market-size figure that is company-stated and should be treated as such.

The risks

• Profitability is far off and cash burn is real. The FY25 net loss was ₹19.1 crore against ₹25 crore of revenue, and management guides break-even only to FY27 (Inc42, November 2025). The mechanism: acquisition and platform costs scale with growth, so the path to profit depends on the top line compounding faster than marketing — which FY25 did not demonstrate.
• Channel concentration on quick commerce. With about 90% of revenue online and Blinkit the largest single channel (Inc42, November 2025), MasterChow’s economics are exposed to platform take rates, listing and ad fees, and any change in how those apps rank or discount SKUs. Concentration in a handful of apps is leverage those apps hold, not the brand.
• Marketing dependence. Advertising of ₹11.9 crore consumed close to half of FY25 revenue (Inc42, November 2025). If demand does not sustain once spend is throttled, the FY26 ₹72 crore target — itself a 3x jump — becomes hard to hit without deepening losses.
• Small scale in a crowded category. Asian sauces, noodles and ready-to-cook are contested by both packaged-food incumbents and other D2C challengers, and MasterChow’s ₹25 crore FY25 revenue is modest relative to that competitive field. The reported top-line reset, even if partly accounting-driven, leaves little margin for error against larger, better-capitalised rivals.

The takeaway

MasterChow’s lesson is about the gap between a growth narrative and a clean set of accounts, and how easily the two can drift apart in a young consumer brand. A near-300% jump in FY24 is exactly the shape investors reward, and it earned MasterChow a $6.5 million Series A and a celebrity chef. But the very next year the reported revenue went backwards, the company had to explain that the fall was mostly a change in how it counts sales, and the loss still widened because spending kept climbing. None of that is fraud or failure; it is the ordinary friction of scaling a physical-goods brand on rented digital shelves. The transferable point is that a restated number, honestly disclosed, is worth more than a flattering one — and that a brand which lives on quick commerce lives, to a large degree, on terms it does not set. Whether MasterChow reaches its ₹200 crore FY27 goal will depend less on the flavours, which clearly sell, and more on whether it can grow the top line faster than the cost of buying attention.

Frequently asked questions

Who founded MasterChow and when?

MasterChow was founded in 2020 by Vidur Kataria and Sidhanth Madan, school friends who had earlier run an Asian quick-service chain called Wok Me, together with Radhika Mittal, who is co-founder and chief financial officer. The legal entity, MasterChow Foods Private Limited, was incorporated in New Delhi on 21 November 2020 (ZaubaCorp).

How much money has MasterChow raised?

Reported totals differ by source. Inc42 put cumulative funding at about $10 million at the time of the November 2024 Series A and cited $8.2 million to date in November 2025, while Tracxn lists $11.6 million across five rounds. Its largest disclosed round was a $6.5 million Series A in November 2024 led by Tanglin Venture Partners, with Peak XV’s Surge, Anicut Capital and WEH Ventures.

Why did MasterChow’s revenue fall in FY25?

MasterChow’s operating revenue fell about 33% to ₹25 crore in FY25 from ₹37.6 crore in FY24. The company attributes the drop mainly to a reclassification of its accounts under generally accepted accounting principles that excluded inter-branch sales, an adjustment it says could not be applied to the FY24 figure. Its net loss still widened to ₹19.1 crore (Inc42, November 2025).

Was MasterChow on Shark Tank India?

No verifiable record of MasterChow (the Delhi Asian-sauce and noodle brand) appearing on Shark Tank India was found in the sources reviewed for this piece. A separate frozen-food brand is often confused with it in search results; MasterChow’s funding has come from venture and angel investors, not a televised pitch, as far as public records show.

Is MasterChow profitable?

No. MasterChow reported a net loss of ₹19.1 crore in FY25, wider than the ₹14.7 crore loss in FY24, and management has guided to only single-digit positive EBITDA by FY27 (Inc42, November 2025). Profitability is a stated target rather than a current fact.

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• Inc42 — “MasterChow’s FY25 Loss Widens 30% To INR 19.1 Cr Amid Top Line Dip,” November 2025.
• Inc42 — “MasterChow Sees FY26 Revenue Growing 3X To INR 72 Cr,” November 2025.
• Inc42 — “Exclusive: MasterChow Raises $6.5 Mn From Tanglin Ventures, Peak XV’s Surge,” November 2024.
• Inc42 — “What’s MasterChow’s Saucy Plan To Dominate The Indian Ready-To-Cook Market?,” March 2025.
• Indian Retailer — “Funding Alert: MasterChow Raises Rs 3.5 cr in Seed Funding,” December 2021.
• TechGraph — “MasterChow secures Rs 3.5 Cr in seed round funding led by WEH Ventures,” December 2021.
• Business Standard — “Asian cuisine brand MasterChow raises Rs 3.5 cr in seed led by WEH Ventures,” December 2021.
• YourStory — “With holy basil sauce, udon noodles & more, these F&B entrepreneurs…,” May 2022; and MasterChow company profile, 2026.
• Tracxn — MasterChow company and legal-entity profiles, 2026.
• ZaubaCorp — MasterChow Foods Private Limited, CIN U15400DL2020PTC373515 (incorporation record).
• Trading Economics — USD/INR reference rate, 18 September 2026.

Found an error? Write to us and we’ll correct it in the open, dated, on the piece.