Stellapps’ mooMark fuels growth by riding the private label wave, supplying dairy products to Zepto, HUL, ITC & more.
With 85% revenue from contract manufacturing, the dairy tech startup eyes Rs 750 Cr in FY26 revenue and a Rs 2,000 Cr IPO goal by FY29.
Dairy tech startup Stellapps, which was originally focused on providing a full-stack Internet of Things (IoT) platform to optimise the milk supply chain, has now found a sweet spot — contract manufacturing of private label dairy products for quick commerce, e-commerce, D2C and FMCG players. Today, 85% of the total revenue for the company comes from this business, called mooMark. Through this vertical, Stellapps manufactures dairy products such as milk, curd, ghee, paneer, buttermilk, among others, for around 100 companies such as Zepto, Unilever, ITC, Varun Beverages, HUL, Namdharis and Hampi Farms, and HoReCa such as Sheraton, Lalit, among others.
Explaining why the company decided to take a B2B approach instead of launching its own D2C brand, Ranjith Mukundan, CEO and co-founder, Stellapps, told FE, “Our DNA is running operations at scale using tech. And, when we looked at the market, we figured that there are a lot of really good companies with deep pockets in B2C such as Reliance Retail, Amazon Fresh, Zepto and others, who have mastered the art of acquiring consumers.”
These large companies, however, needed the know-how of dairy products and end-to-end management, which Stellapps had mastered through its IoT platform. “They don’t want to get bogged down by where to find the right buffalo, cow, how do I do a cheese, how do I do a paneer that melts in your mouth kind of things. So, we decided to be their intel inside, to offer products like antibiotic-free protein-rich paneer, lactose-free curd, etc,” he added.
The Bengaluru-based company was founded by Mukundan, Ravi Shiroor, Ramakrishna Adukuri, Praveen Nale and Venkatesh Seshasayee in 2011 as an IoT platform provider. The startup launched mooMark in 2020, looking at the demand for unadulterated, high-quality milk and value-added products. Currently, 10% of its revenue comes from the IoT business and 5% from its third vertical, which connects farmers with financial & insurance institutions, cattle nutrition providers, agro-input providers, among others.
In October last year, Stellapps raised $26 million in Series C funding in a mix of equity and debt from existing investors, including Blume Ventures, Omnivore, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IDH Farmfit Fund, and Blue Ashva Capital and new investor Miledeep Capital. The freshly infused capital was targeted towards building mooMark. “Before this, we just had the capital to run our technology business that powers everything that we do. But, we didn’t have the capital for value-added products. So, that entire amount was targeted towards setting up multiple dairy processing plants,” he said.
Stellapps plans to raise the next round in 12 to 18 months and targets to touch the Rs 750 revenue run rate mark in FY26. it expects mooMark to continue to be the major revenue contributor. The firm reported a revenue of Rs 360 crore in FY24. The startup is also eyeing an IPO by FY29, when it touches a 2,000 crore revenue run rate.
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