Ex McKinsey chief Rajat Gupta and Roots Ventures lead $1 Mn round in Teamonk

Premium tea brand Teamonk Global has raised $1 million in Pre-series A funding round led by former McKinsey chief Rajat Gupta and Roots Ventures.

This is one of the fewest investments made by Gupta in his personal capacity. In 2016, he backed Zappka (now closed), a Gurugram-based online app development company and marketplace.

With this investment, the Bengaluru-based startup looks to scale up its portfolio of premium teas and targets to reach new geographies. Currently, Temonk is available in the US, Canada, and European markets.

Following the fundraising, Teamonk has also announced the appointment of FMCG professional, Nalin Sood as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), said the company in a press statement.

Launched by Ashok Mittal and Amit Dutta in 2016, Teamonk sells premium specialty tea sourced from the Nilgiri hills in Tamil Nadu and Darjeeling in West Bengal.

Recently, Teamonk added a range of natural fruit & flower based green teas like mango, hibiscus, chamomile apart from a range of pure herb based green teas and Japanese  Matcha Green tea.

The range of its Darjeeling and Nilgiri White and Oolong teas are already top sellers on Amazon and Flipkart. Besides, it's piloting kiosk machines in gourmet stores to boost its offline presence.

For buyers, Teamonk offers customised and pre-made subscription program starting from Rs 799/month.

In premium tea e-tailing segment, Teamonk will find tough competitors from the likes of Chai Point, Chaayos, Vahdam Teas that have raised decent funding and expanded their market in past one year.

Last year Chaayos raised $12 million Series B round and Chai Point bagged $20 million series C round led by Paragon Partners.

In a recent interview,  Mittal revealed that Teamonk is growing significantly and expect to deliver Rs 150 crore GMV in next 4 years.