Chaayos secures $21.5 Mn round led by Think Investments

Tea cafe chain startup Chaayos has secured $21.5 million in a mix of equity and debt funding round led by Silicon Valley-based Think Investments.

The latest investment round saw the participation of existing investors, including SAIF Partners and Tiger Global. InnoVen Capital participated by investing $3 million as venture debt.

The New Delhi-based startup has received fresh capital after a gap of 17 months. Previously, it had raised $12 million in its Series B funding round from SAIF Partners, Hong Kong-based Integrated Capital and Pactolus in September of 2018.

It had also raised around $2 million from Tiger Global Management in an internal round of funding in October 2017.

With the latest investment round, the total funding raised by the company has reached $41.5 million so far.

The company is looking to deploy these fresh funds towards strengthening its technology and expanding team. A significant portion of the funding will also be used for opening 100 new stores by the end of this current fiscal, said an Economic Times report.

Founded in November 2012 by IIT alumni-Nitin Saluja and Raghav Verma, Chaayos owns and operates a chain of retail shops that sells a variety of teas and meals along with facilitating option of dine-in, takeaways, and online delivery.

The startup offers an option of 12 add-ons that give its customers a total of over 12,000 ways to make their chai or tea at Chaayos. It claims to have served over 1.7 million customers with the average repeat rate of ordering tea standing at 3.5 times a month.

Currently operational in 8 Indian cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Noida, Karnal, and Gurugram, the company has eight stores in Bengaluru, and 72 in Delhi and Mumbai combined.

According to Chaayos' annual statements for FY19, the company's revenue from operations increased by 27.9% to Rs 66.87 crore from Rs 52.25 crore in FY18. It faced a net loss of Rs 28.75 crore at the end of the FY19.

While the total expenditure incurred by the company during last fiscal stood at Rs 97.37 crore, a major amount of Rs 25.07 crore was spent on employees' benefit, and cost of material consumed amounted to Rs 20.65 crore.

Chaayos competes with Chai Point, Vahdam Teas, and TeaNation, among others in this space.