What makes a restaurant worth backing when 80% of them fail?
Hotshare, an F&B investment platform that backs restaurant businesses at the outlet level, evaluated 41 brands in its first year and invested in just three.
So what made those three worth backing?
For Lavanya, Founder and CEO of Hotshare, the answer is not just great food, a packed dining room or a strong brand.
She wants proof that the outlet itself works.
That means profitability. Clean operating data. Healthy unit economics. Repeat demand. Tight execution. And a clear reason to believe the same economics can hold when the business opens its next location.
In this episode of the Prime Venture Partners Podcast, Jerome Manuel sits down with Lavanya to understand how Hotshare decides which restaurant businesses are ready for capital, why traditional venture frameworks do not always fit F&B, and what founders need to prove before asking someone else to fund outlet #2.
00:00 Introduction to Lavanya and Hotshare
03:35 How Hotshare evaluates F&B brands
10:03 Capital flowing into India’s F&B sector
15:32 Hotshare’s “missing middle” thesis
22:57 How Hotshare thinks about outlet-level returns
30:16 The numbers behind a healthy restaurant
34:02 Common mistakes restaurant founders make
38:21 Market research and the data gap in F&B
43:19 Profitability and CapEx benchmarks
53:06 Can hospitality become an investable asset class?
59:12 Red flags and green flags Hotshare watches for
1:01:38 Rapid fire: discipline vs talent, food vs unit economics
1:10:16 BeyondBurg founder Anas joins the conversation
1:13:07 Why Hotshare invested in BeyondBurg
1:28:29 Restaurant recommendations from Lavanya and Anas
Hotshare does not fund first outlets. Lavanya wants to see at least one profitable outlet, backed by operating data, signed financials and ongoing MIS, before considering the next one.
She also gets specific about the economics, from COGS, EBITDA and rent to profitability and CapEx recovery, and why a strong month matters far less than the trajectory of the business.
The conversation also gets into Hotshare’s “missing middle” thesis: many restaurants need ₹50 lakh to ₹5 crore to expand, an amount that can fall between informal funding and traditional institutional capital. Lavanya explains why outlet-level cash generation and yield can offer a different way to think about returns in F&B.
Then BeyondBurg co-founder Mohammed Anas joins the conversation.
BeyondBurg started in 2017 as a four-seat kiosk selling around 40 to 50 burgers a day. At the time of the podcast, it was doing roughly 3,000 burgers a day and preparing to open its sixth location.
Lavanya and Anas talk about what Hotshare saw in the business, from disciplined unit economics and operating data to a focused product, strong systems and a hospitality culture that could hold up as the brand expanded.
For F&B founders thinking about raising capital and investors trying to understand what makes a restaurant worth backing, this is a detailed look at how those decisions are actually made.
Connect with Lavanya Jayashankar
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lavanyajayashankar
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mowglikima/
X: https://x.com/LavsJS
Follow Jerome Manuel
X (Twitter):https://x.com/JeromeAndManuel
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeromermanuel
Read the transcript for the entire podcast here:
https://bit.ly/Hotshare
About Prime Venture Partners
Prime Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm backing exceptional founders building category-defining technology companies across SaaS, fintech, AI, healthcare, consumer internet and enterprise software.
Learn more:Prime Venture Partners
Follow Prime Venture Partners:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2780448/admin/dashboard/
X (Twitter): https://x.com/Primevp_in
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/primevp_in/
Learn more about:
Hotshare:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hotshare.in/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hotshare/
BeyondBurg:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beyondburginc/?hl=en
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