Online Food Delivery (Cakes) — NPR 5–10 crore turnover, ~25 staff · Financial Strategy
Costing every product, then building the raise around it
A pioneering online cake delivery business was preparing to raise capital with weak accounting and no product-level costing behind the numbers.
The challenge
The company had built a genuine first-mover position in online cake delivery and was growing on demand rather than on planning. It was preparing to approach investors. The accounting was unreliable: records were behind, the books did not support the reporting an investor would ask for, and there was no costing at product level. Pricing had been set by judgement. Management could describe the business well but could not evidence what any individual product actually earned, which is the first thing a serious investor tests.
The diagnosis
Two problems sat behind one another. The immediate problem was that the accounting could not support a fundraise — a diligence process would have exposed it within days. The deeper problem was that nobody could say which cakes made money. Ingredient cost was known roughly; production labour, baking and refrigeration time, packaging, delivery and wastage were not allocated to products at all. Without that, neither pricing nor the unit economics in a pitch could be defended.
The response
We assessed the accounting position first and set out what had to be corrected before any investor conversation. We then built a costing model for the product range: a formula and a standard format that costs each product from recipe through production and delivery, so the business can cost a new product itself rather than coming back to us. On that base we built the financial section of the raise — unit economics, the revenue build and the supporting numbers — and prepared the pitch deck around them, so the financial story and the model reconciled to each other.
The outcome
Management can now cost any product on the range using its own format, and price from evidence rather than judgement. The company approached its funding conversations with unit economics that hold up to questioning and accounting that supports them. Engagement ran six to eight weeks. Conclusion: a raise is won or lost on whether the numbers survive scrutiny. Getting the costing right is not preparation for the pitch — it is the pitch.
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