Fireside Ventures infuses Rs 16 Cr into tea etailer Vahdam Teas

Premium tea e-tailer Vahdam Teas has raised Rs 16 crore from existing investors Fireside Ventures in its third institutional round of funding.

The fresh capital comes within 10 months for the Delhi-based startup, which raked in about $1.4 million from Fireside in December 2017.

With the latest funding, Vahdam has so far raised about Rs 30 crore and also counts Mumbai Angels, Singapore Angel Network and a clutch of eminent angel investors as its investors.

The proceeds will be deployed towards brand building, customer acquisition in India besides expanding its presence in the US.

Founded in 2015 by Bala Sarda, Vahdam Teas provides an online platform through which it ships Indian tea to customers globally. The startup works with about 150-200 tea plantations and small growers across all seven tea-growing regions in India – Darjeeling, Assam, the Nilgiris, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and Bihar, as well as in Nepal.

The firm claims to have shipped over 100 million cups of tea since its launch in 2015. It also witnessed about 10X growth in revenues over the last 2 years.

According to Bala, Vahdam has also started working with contractual manufacturers in India to meet its huge demand of almost 25,000 kgs of tea which is shipped each quarter.

The firm has now set up a new warehouse in Indianapolis to serve its customer base there better, reports ET.

Last month, one of the largest tea-etailers in India, Chaayos had raised $12 million in its Series B funding round from SAIF Partners, Hong Kong-based Integrated Capital and Singapore based Pactolus.

With the growing interest of investors in tea e-tailing firms, more investments can be expected in this space where Chai Point, Tea Trails, Starbucks, and others are expanding their presence day by day.