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Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal - Co-founders of Country Delight
In a world where quick commerce is the norm and convenience is king, quality is too often overlooked.
It may get you what you need in minutes, but it rarely guarantees what you deserve, especially when it comes to food and dairy products.
Ask any Indian family, and you’ll hear the same story: “Milk just doesn’t taste the way it used to.” It’s thinner, less creamy, and suspiciously uniform.
The kind of milk that once bubbled on the stovetop, filling homes with the warm scent of malai, has been replaced by mass-produced cartons with week-long shelf lives and little soul.
That’s the problem Country Delight set out to solve.
Meet the Founders
Back in 2011, Chakradhar Gade and Nitin Kaushal were colleagues at IBF Financial. Both were IIT Delhi graduates with MBAs from top IIMs.
Like many in finance, they spent their days studying balance sheets and evaluating businesses. But something about traditional business builders fascinated them more than spreadsheets ever could.
“We were inspired by people who had spent 20-30 years building companies quietly and sustainably,” Chakradhar said during an interview with The CapTable
They began discussing ideas.
What if they could build a business that wasn’t just scalable but essential? A daily need.
That’s when the idea of milk came up—not the long-shelf-life kind in plastic packets, but the kind they grew up drinking at home. Fresh. Creamy. Real.
Their early logic was comically simple.
“We thought cattle were non-depreciating assets,” Chakradhar laughed during the Elevation Capital Interview. “It made perfect sense on Excel.”
What followed was a sharp learning curve.
They were not dairy experts, but they were willing to learn everything from scratch. That curiosity became the foundation for what would become Country Delight.
Bootstrapped Beginnings
Founded in 2013, Country Delight is an Indian direct-to-consumer (D2C) dairy delivery startup that specialises in providing fresh, natural, and unadulterated milk and other daily essentials directly from farms to customers’ homes.
The startup remained bootstrapped for the first 4 years, from 2013-2017.
They spent those years obsessing over the basics – sourcing good-quality milk, building a small but reliable delivery system, and testing every element of the customer experience.
The founders didn’t rush for funding. It was simply the only option they had.
“In those days, there was no real VC appetite for a fresh food delivery business—especially one focused on milk,” Chakradhar was quoted as saying by YourStory Media. “And honestly, we didn’t know how to raise funds. So we focused on what we could control.”
Both founders put in personal savings to get the business off the ground. They started small, sourcing milk locally, working with a handful of delivery partners, and operating out of modest spaces.
“We were running the show end-to-end—procurement, delivery planning, customer service, everything,” Chakradhar recalls.
Building Country Delight
“Our first goal wasn’t to scale,” Chakradhar said. “It was to earn enough to sustain ourselves and solve a real problem.”
Every rupee mattered. Marketing was word-of-mouth. Logistics involved renting two-wheelers. There were no frills – only focus.
They began in a few neighbourhoods, delivering fresh milk every morning before sunrise.
To ensure this consistency, they built their own cold chain logistics system, bypassing middlemen.
Every bottle of milk was traceable back to the farm. The tech behind the system was basic at first – but functional. And most of all, it gave the founders full control.
Instead of investing in advertising, they invested in transparency.
It was this combination of quality, trust, and relentless problem-solving that set Country Delight apart. While others focused on scaling fast, the founders focused on retention and reliability.
Retention First, Scale Second
While many consumer brands focus on rapid user acquisition, Country Delight took a more measured approach. In its early years, the company concentrated on retaining the customers it had, rather than aggressively expanding its user base.
“From the beginning, our goal was simple - get customers to try the product once. If they did, the product would take care of retention,” says co-founder Chakradhar Gade.
The team focused on product quality and service consistency.
As feedback improved and customers stayed longer, the company expanded its offerings beyond milk to other daily essentials such as curd, ghee, fruits, eggs, and vegetables.
“The brand wasn’t built on advertisements. It was built on repeat behaviour,” Chakradhar notes.
Unconventional Marketing Strategies
Country Delight didn’t follow the typical playbook when it came to marketing.
In its early years, the company avoided big-budget advertising, celebrity endorsements, or performance-heavy digital campaigns. Instead, it leaned on functionality, customer trust, and word-of-mouth.
One of its earliest marketing tools wasn’t even a campaign—it was a lab-tested milk report.
Each customer received third-party quality certifications with their milk, offering transparency in a category often marked by doubt.
This later evolved into a home milk testing kit, allowing customers to verify the quality of milk themselves. It was a simple but effective way to build credibility.
“We weren’t marketers by training,” says co-founder Chakradhar Gade. “We just tried to communicate honestly and clearly. That helped people trust us.”
The brand also made unconventional choices when it did engage in broader awareness. Instead of high-profile celebrities, Country Delight backed Indian athletes like Neeraj Chopra and Bajrang Punia - well before they were in the public spotlight.
The idea wasn’t to make noise - it was to stay consistent with what the brand stood for: trust, performance, and everyday relevance.
Even today, much of Country Delight’s customer acquisition happens organically, through referrals and consistent service, rather than aggressive paid campaigns.
Revenue & Growth
Over the years, Country Delight’s growth has been steady, driven less by viral spikes and more by repeat behaviour and increasing wallet share.
What began as a bootstrapped milk delivery venture has grown into a multi-category fresh food platform serving hundreds of thousands of Indian households every day.
The company has seen nearly 2X year-on-year growth over several consecutive years.
This has been enabled by its focus on high-frequency essentials like milk, curd, bread, eggs, fruits, and vegetables—all of which are consumed daily and lend themselves to predictable demand.
Here’s a snapshot of Country Delight’s reported revenue growth over the years according to The Arc Web:
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FY18: ₹19 crore
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FY19: ₹65 crore
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FY20: ₹175 crore
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FY21: ₹321 crore
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FY22: ₹543 crore
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FY23: ₹900 crore
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FY24: ₹1,380 crore
This upward trajectory is supported by a few key factors: high customer retention, a prepaid subscription model that ensures positive cash flow, and cross-selling to existing households rather than solely focusing on new user acquisition.
The brand’s decision to remain capital-efficient in its early years helped instill financial discipline, even after raising external funding.
Today, with a wide user base and an expanding product catalogue, Country Delight continues to grow - not just by reaching new homes, but by increasing its relevance within each one.
Also Read: ‘Don’t onboard your spouse to spice up your startup’: Bengaluru founder warns couplepreneurs
Funding & Investment
After operating as a bootstrapped venture for its initial years, Country Delight began attracting external capital to scale its operations.
According to Entrackr, the company has raised over $221 million through a mix of equity and debt funding across multiple rounds.
Seed Funding (2015–2017)
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Amount Raised: Undisclosed
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Purpose: Early operations, logistics, and customer testing
Series A (2018)
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Amount Raised: $1.5 million
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Lead Investor: Orios Venture Partners
Series B (2019)
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Amount Raised: $10 million
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Investors: Matrix Partners India, Orios Venture Partners
Series C (2020)
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Amount Raised: $25 million
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Lead Investor: Elevation Capital
Series D (2021)
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Amount Raised: $108 million
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Lead Investors: Venturi Partners, Temasek Holdings
Series E (2024)
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Amount Raised: $1.7 billion (valuation: ~$820 million / ₹6,950 crore)
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Lead Investor: Temasek Holdings
Debt Funding (2024)
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Amount Raised: Undisclosed
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Investor: Alteria Capital
A Subscription-Based Model and Expanding Product Line
One of the key strategies that set Country Delight apart was its subscription-based model, which provided the company with a steady and predictable revenue stream while delivering a highly personalised experience to customers.
This approach not only ensured positive cash flow but also fostered deep customer loyalty through convenient, recurring doorstep deliveries.
As of January, Country Delight’s delivery network has grown to over 6,000 personnel who fulfill more than 5 million orders every month, serving over 3 lakh households across multiple cities in India.
The Way Forward
The company’s mission remains focused: delivering high-quality daily essentials with unmatched freshness, transparency, and trust.
“The future of food lies in trust and traceability,” said co-founder Chakradhar Gade during a Business Line Interview. “Our goal is to create a seamless experience where quality is non-negotiable and convenience doesn’t come at the cost of nutrition.”
Having established itself in dairy & fresh products, Country Delight is now expanding into ready-to-cook meals, probiotics, artisanal dairy, and responsibly sourced meats. At the same time, it’s investing in sustainable cold chain systems and eco-friendly packaging to reduce its environmental impact.
“We’ve always believed in solving one problem really well before moving on to the next,” adds co-founder Nitin Kaushal. “Now that we’ve earned customer trust in dairy, we’re ready to extend that trust across the entire kitchen.”
By pairing operational discipline with thoughtful innovation, Country Delight is building not just a D2C brand - but a new standard for how India consumes food at home.