Join Ventures, which houses D2C (direct to consumer) brands such as gifting company IGP in its portfolio, has announced its foray into indulgent foods with the launch of a new D2C brand, Masqa. The company is looking to hire over 100 employees across the country in operations, sales and marketing to support its ambition for Masqa with an investment of over $7 million within the next 18 months.

Join Ventures has a base of over 100 million visitors in more than 100 countries across its portfolio of leading brands-IGP; Interflora India and IGPforBusiness, that gives Masqa a strong inception, to place it in the league of leading brands in the indulgent food space.

Masqa will work on delivering premium gourmet experiences to its consumers with assortments of delicacies such as sweets, patisserie and chocolates.

Tarun Joshi, founder and CEO, Join Ventures and Masqa, said, “This year, consumers across the world shopped for over 100 tonnes of indulgent foods from us. With our commitment to provide consumers a superlative experience coupled with the passion for everything celebratory and love for gourmet, creating Masqa became a logical and most relevant addition to our portfolio. We aim to take Masqa across the globe and deliver a gastronomic experience beyond the imagined.

“Food is a strong growth area for Join Ventures, and we are looking at investing upward of USD 7 million in next 18 months on Masqa to give a full stack D2C experience to the consumers. To enable this, we are in the process of building a team of 100 specialists for Masqa.” Joshi added.

According to Avendus D2C report, the D2C food and beverage market stood at USD 5.5 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of around 40% to touch USD 15 billion by 2025. The company aims to target the rising affluent Indian households and capture a sizable chunk of the ready-to-eat market with premium, indulgent food offerings from Masqa.