Food services platform Focus Prism raises ₹145 crore from OAKS, buys Chennai-based catering firm FoodExo

Mumbai: Focus Prism, a Coimbatore-based food services platform that raised ₹145 crore from OAKS Asset Management last month, has acquired FoodExo Chennai Pvt. Ltd, underscoring the consolidation of assets in a niche segment and growing institutionalization in a sector currently dominated by global players.

Through the capital infusion, OAKS has taken a significant minority stake in Focus Prism. While the bulk of the proceeds from the fundraise financed the acquisition, Focus Prism also reserved a portion of the capital for other growth plans, Vivek Anand, managing director and founder of OAKS, told Mint. The acquisition was about ₹150 crore in size and was a mix of stock and cash, he added.

Led by founder and managing director Ganesh Panchanathan, Chennai-based FoodExo is a leading corporate catering company serving various industries. Established in 2011, it began with 60 employees serving 1,000 people and has scaled up to more and 2,000 employees serving 150,000 meals per day as of 2025. Panchanathan has been absorbed into Focus Prism following the acquisition, and is now head of operations - south at the firm.

Market opportunity

OAKS typically backs experienced entrepreneurs in large, secular markets where a good business can compound through scale and operating performance rather than through repeated capital raising. “What attracted us here was the combination of a highly fragmented industry, an experienced founder, and a technology and process platform that can bring consistency, visibility and discipline to a business that has historically been fragmented,” Anand said.

The investment firm is currently deploying from its second fund, about ₹1,000 crore in size and raised in 2022. Its previous fund, raised in 2017-18, was about ₹700 crore in size. It has backed consumer-facing companies including Foodlink, InCred, CredAble, Shree, TrooGood, Keus and Wow! Momo across two funds.

Broadly, the institutional food services market in India is over ₹60,000 crore in size, with the top three players controlling just about 11% of the market, according to a note shared by OAKS. Large institutional food services companies such as Sodexo and the Compass Group have demonstrated how the industry has scaled over time.

Sodexo began in 1966 as a local catering business serving institutions, companies, schools and hospitals, and subsequently expanded across sectors and geographies, including through acquisitions. Similarly, the Compass Group built a global contract food services platform by leveraging acquisitions, sector expansion, purchasing efficiencies and cross-selling benefits.

These companies have transformed a fragmented, operationally intensive industry into a more formalized, tech-enabled and consolidated market, building scaled platforms through organic growth, acquisitions and integration.

Growth strategy

Focus Prism will also follow a similar trajectory of acquiring and integrating high-quality regional, specialist family-run operators where it sees a strategic fit. The strategy will involve bringing businesses onto a common management, technology and procurement framework and will use technology, data, processes, key performance indicators, food-cost discipline, quality and compliance to create repeatability.

Founded by Subramanian Suryanarayanan in 2017, Focus Prism’s early proposition centered on food cost optimization and the clarity technology platform, but the business has evolved into technology-enabled, direct food service operations over the years.

The company operates in more than 25 cities with over 65 kitchens under management. After the acquisition, it has a projected revenue of about ₹700 crore in the current fiscal year and over ₹1,500 crore by FY30.

“India has a very large institutional food-services market, but much of it has historically been built around fragmented operators, manual processes, and local execution,” Suryanarayanan said. “Our ambition is to bring technology, process, procurement, quality and operating discipline together on one platform and then use that platform to build scale, both organically and through consolidation.”

With over three decades of experience across food and hospitality, he has worked across hotel and food service operations, with depth in costing and food cost management. He has worked as an independent consultant with many food businesses including Sri Krishna Sweets and Adyar Ananda Bhavan on food cost performance and operating efficiency.