Haldiram's, founded in 1937 in Bikaner, Rajasthan, grew from a small family sweet shop into India's largest snack company, entirely without external funding — until a 2025 stake sale to Temasek and L Catterton valued the business in the $9–11 billion range.
The Story
The Haldiram's story begins in 1919, when 12-year-old Ganga Bishan Agarwal, known as Haldiram, modified his father's traditional bhujia recipe, creating a thinner, crispier snack that became an instant local success in Bikaner.
That success formalized into a retail shop in 1937.
Over the following decades, the Agarwal family expanded Haldiram's across sweets, namkeen, packaged snacks, restaurants, and frozen foods, eventually reaching over 80 countries — entirely funded through family capital and reinvested profits.
Starting in late 2024, the family began exploring a stake sale ahead of a potential IPO, drawing serious interest from Blackstone, a Bain Capital-Temasek consortium, Alpha Wave Global, and eventually PepsiCo.
After more than 18 months of negotiations, Temasek emerged as the lead investor, securing a stake at a valuation in the $9–11 billion range.
Blackstone withdrew from the race over valuation and IPO-timeline disagreements. L Catterton also acquired a stake in the company.
Business Insight
Haldiram's illustrates a genuinely rare path to scale in Indian consumer business: building category leadership and global brand recognition entirely through organic, family-funded growth, only opening to institutional capital once the business had already achieved dominant market position.
The FundForge Take
Haldiram's near-$10 billion valuation, achieved without a single funding round for over a century, is a powerful data point for founders skeptical of the "raise fast, scale faster" model.
As the company weighs a future IPO, its trajectory may become a template other family-run Indian consumer businesses look to as they consider whether and when to open up to outside capital.