Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters Raises Rs 17 Cr Funding

Specialty coffee startup Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters on Wednesday said it has raised Rs 17 crore in funding, led by Anicut Angel Fund.

The pre-series B bridge round also saw participation from other new and existing investors, a statement said.

The funding will help the company to launch new products, execute farm-level interventions to improve quality, expand internationally as well as for marketing, it added.

The company has raised Rs 76 crore till date and its previous investors include Snow Leopard, 8i, Kothari Family (DSP), Angellist, and HNIs like Aditya Ghosh (former IndiGo president) and others.

Founded in 2012, Blue Tokai was established to source, roast, and highlight specialty-grade Indian coffee in contrast to the instant coffee or filter coffee most commonly available in the country. The company started out selling its coffee online and through B2B partnerships and then via cafes that are now present across Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Hyderabad.

“We’ve been omnichannel in our approach since the very early stages of our business. Our mission has always been very simple – make high-quality coffee more accessible – regardless of where, when, and how you drink your coffee, we want to give the option of having a high-quality, Indian coffee,’ Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters co-founder Matt Chitharanjan said.

He added that cafes were an important part of that mission, but like many brands, COVID-19 completely upended the economics of that business.

‘We were fortunate to already have a strong D2C presence and by refocusing our efforts on our online sales channels, we’ve been able to grow our revenue nearly 50 per cent more than our pre-COVID peak. The funding we received demonstrates that we saw the pandemic as an opportunity to build a base for the next leg of our growth and we are grateful to partner with investors who share our vision,” he said. 

(PTI)