Boba Bhai secures INR 30 crore in Series A funding led by 8i Ventures

Chai Sutta Bar is known for its wide array of tea choices. The Agra location now has an impressive selection of 9 unique tea flavors.

Chai Sutta Bar is pleased to declare its expansion within the state of Uttar Pradesh, where it now has a network of 61 outlets.

The brand aims to increase its presence substantially, targeting the opening of nearly 100 additional outlets in the near term.

"At Chai Sutta Bar, our passion has always been to serve the finest tea blends, and we're thrilled to offer our customers in Agra 9 diverse tea flavors to choose from. Our rapid growth in Uttar Pradesh is a testament to the love and trust our customers have placed in us." said, Anubhav Dubey, CEO of Chai Sutta Bar.

This strategic expansion plan underscores the brand's steadfast commitment to delivering high-quality tea across every corner of Uttar Pradesh.

"Our Agra outlet has been running smoothly for the past 2 years, and I'm incredibly satisfied with the overwhelming response from the public. It's heartening to see the community embracing our tea offerings, and I look forward to continuing to serve them with excellence." said, Mr. Sonu Singh, franchise owner of Chai Sutta Bar's Agra outlet.

It's important to note that Chai Sutta Bar has always been about tea, not smoking or a traditional bar setting.

Tea cafe chain, Chaayos has appointed Akash Chauhan as the Head of Human Resources.

Akash comes with over 13 years of experience in the HR domain. Prior to joining Chayoos, he was working as HR Head at cure.fit.

Chauhan worked at Urban Ladder earlier as vice president and head of human resources, last mile delivery, and customer success. He also held a position at Infosys BPO.

He has done PGDM in HR from International Management Institute (IMI), and Bachelors in Economics from Delhi University.

Tea chain Chai Sutta Bar expand to 14 additional locations in states like Mumbai, Pune, Udaipur, and Varanasi in the month of December.

While expanding rapidly in the local market, Chai Sutta Bar (CSB), a homegrown fast food and tea outlet brand, is also looking to expand their franchise business in the international market.

CSB has already established a firm in the United Kingdom in order to quickly expand into the markets of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.

“We are thrilled to open these new outlets and expand our tea franchise. Our goal is to bring our delicious tea to more people and create a more convenient experience for our customers,” shared Anubhav Dubey, CEO and Co-founder of Chai Sutta Bar.

The vision of Chai Sutta Bar is to deliver a unique cultural blend and values to each corner of the world. CSB has 450+ outlets in 195+ cities.

One of the largest Chai-led beverage platform, Chai Point has entered Amritsar by opening its store at the iconic Town Hall Complex near The Golden Temple.

The launch is in line with Chai Point’s retail expansion strategy of opening 100 more stores in the next 12-18 months and bringing an elevated Chai experience to a larger consumer base by leveraging the software and hardware capabilities of its myChai™ brewing system.

“We are excited to bring the Chai Point experience to a city known for its exceptional food culture. With our innovation backed myChai™ brewing systems and a wide array of food offerings, we are looking forward to delighting our customers in Amritsar with an elevated Chai led experience,” shared Amuleek Singh Bijral, Co-founder & CEO, Chai Point.

Chai Point is present in India through its retail network of 180 stores across 9 major cities and in over 3500 workplace community hubs covering 43 cities through its specialised brewing systems.

Over the past month, the company has opened 18 stores with a strong presence in major cities including Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai and NCR.

The brand serves over 700,000 cups every day and fulfilled 100 million cups delivery over the past year through its cloud kitchens and delivery networks using their innovative heat retaining Chai flasks which were launched in 2016. Chai Point is the first company in India to launch environment-friendly heat retaining Chai flasks that can keep the chai, coffee hot for upto 2 hours. With its packaged goods range, Chai Point has served over 8,300 pin codes in India.

Chai Point Amritsar is a large format store offering both indoor and outdoor seating. The premium store design and experience comprises a contemporary environment inside a historic building with careful attention given to its scale and original texture.

“While staying true to the building's typology of the space, we paid homage to the building's former stature by using materials and furniture that are relevant to the times when it was still an active palace, a time when artisans and royalty walked the halls of this massive palace. Therefore, we found a blend of contemporary and vernacular look and a tactile mix of materials in natural finishes that bear traces of craftsmanship and serve as an appropriate base for the design. As a showcase of our multi-layered approach to design, the original walls of the building were contrasted with massive wooden panelling that frames the space at sill level,” added Bijral.

The furniture for the Amritsar store is custom designed in Jodhpur with emphasis given to raw materials in special finishings that highlight the background of the space. The indoor - outdoor relationship is maintained by applying similar design ideas and material choices to the partition museum's outdoor terrace with cast iron tables and wooden benches circulating around planters.

Tea café chain Chai Sutta Bar has opened its second outlet in Tamil Nadu.

The new outlet is located in Sholinganallur, Kancheepuram.

The outlet is situated near IT parks in order to attract a large number of young professionals. CSB is open to all youth, families, students, and anyone who enjoys Chai in various flavours.

“We are very delighted to announce the opening of our second outlet in Tamil Nadu, Kancheepuram. The love we have from Chennai has made us so overwhelmed. This outlet fills the gap between the lover of chai and kulhad in Chennai,” said Anubhav Dubey, Co-founder, Chai Sutta Bar.

Chai is a significant ritual in the Indian community. CSB follows the ritual of serving various types of chai in Kulhad, along with a variety of food options for everyone to enjoy the vibes and taste.

Every day, CSB serves 4.5 lakh kulhad tea.

Mr. Venkatesh Iyer, a well-known Indian cricket player who was present at the launch shared, "It gives me great pleasure to open the CSB Kancheepuram outlet. I can see and feel the different vibes that this CSB outlet has. When you go into CSB, you start feeling different. CSB offers a large variety of flavors to pick from, and my favorite of all is Chocolate Tea. CSB has tea for every taste, which makes them more unique.” 

The majority of workers in CSB outlets are orphans, differently abled, or unemployed; working there gives them a chance in life.

“We aim to spread the taste of kulhad chai in the world, and our “Desh ki Mitti” should be recognised worldwide,” added Dubey.

With 375+ outlets in 175 cities across India, CSB aims to open 1500+ outlets by the end of 2022, not just in India but globally.

Chai cafe chain Chaayos has raised $53 million in Series C funding.

This round is led by Alpha Wave Ventures with participation from all existing investors Elevation Capital, Tiger Global and Think Investments.

The funds raised will be used for tech-enhancement, hiring and store expansion.

“Very early on in our journey, we took a 50-year view on the chai market and decided to take a technology first approach to build a chai brand. The latest capital raise will help us deepen our technology investments to further enhance our guest experience and build a ubiquitous brand that is an integral part of Indian society over decades to come,” shared Nitin Saluja, Founder & CEO, Chaayos.

Chaayos was founded in 2012 by Nitin Saluja and Raghav Verma with the mission to serve the world its 2 cups of daily chai and snacks.

Chaayos is one of the most hi-tech food & beverage companies globally, enabling a world-class customer experience and fast scale up. At Chaayos, guests can personalize their fresh cup of chai in 80,000 combinations and Chaayos IoT-enabled tea bots called Chai Monks, make this possible. Chai monks are patented bots that brew a cup of chai in 2 mins and avoid the need for training. Thus enabling fast scale up.

“We are privileged to partner with Nitin and Raghav on their journey of building a ubiquitous and much loved destination for Chai and snacks. A unique combination of innovations in food and drinks offerings, strong leverage of technology solutions and obsession over customer satisfaction has positioned Chaayos as a clear leader in their space,” added Deepak Gaur, Partner, Elevation Capital.

Chaayos’ AI platform enables a seamless guest experience. For instance, Chaayos facial recognition software enables faster checkouts and payments. The product recommendation algorithm guides guests through a journey of product trials carefully curated for them. The platform also powers Chaayos loyalty program which rewards guests upon their repeat visits with real time offers. Chaayos two-click ordering mobile application is the preferred mode of ordering for 52% of Chaayos regular guests. The resultant customer love that Chaayos generates is evident through a world-class NPS score of 78.

Chaayos online Chai deliveries now account for 45% of revenues.

“We are excited to partner with Chaayos - India’s most beloved chai destination. Chaayos team has been able to deliver personalized tea consistently well at scale through proprietary systems and technology. We are impressed by the team’s customer obsession, which is visible in its best in class unit economics and customer NPS,” pointed Navroz Udwadia, Co-founder, Alpha Wave Global.

Chaayos runs 190 stores across 6 cities and plans to add 100 more by the end of 2022.

Indore-based tea café chain Chai Sutta Bar has opened its 300^th outlet in Port Blair, Andaman in a gala-like event.

The brand has successfully been welcomed by major South Indian cities and is on the mission to cover the region more.

“Over 3 lakh kulhads are used every day. We wanted to help thousands of pottery makers. As we keep expanding, we will require close to 5 lakhs of kulhads every day,” said Anubhav Dubey, Co-Founder of Chai Sutta Bar.

Dubey also aims to have Chai Sutta Bar’s presence in every city of India within two years, thus spreading more happiness and generating more employment opportunities for the people of India.

The Journey of Chai Sutta Bar started in the cleanest city of India - Indore in 2016 when two young self-made entrepreneurs thought of a vision to serve India's most preferred beverage in kulhads to serve the environment with the high maintenance of hygiene.

Chai Sutta Bar endorses 'desh ki mitti' with its kulhad tea and has the vision to make everyone connect with the soil of India.

Looking at the scorching heat, the brand also introduced some summer special beverages like a refreshing variety of lassi and mojitos to give respite from this heat.

Apart from its food and world-class services, the brand provides a source of regular income to potter families and employs specially-abled youth for making a more inclusive and brighter India.

It is also planning to open 1500 outlets by the end of the year and provide more employment to people with a similar background.

Gujarat based tea startup MBA CHAIWALA has opened their 11^th outlet in Bhavnagar, Gujarat.

With a spread of 10 functional outlets across the country, MBA CHAIWALA was started by Prafull Billore as a small cart outside IIM Ahmedabad.

After the successful addition of the 11th functional unit at Bhavnagar, the café chain plans to open 35 more outlets in the upcoming two months and targets 200 outlets by the end of 2022. 

"We are extremely delighted to announce the opening of our first-ever store in Bhavnagar, Gujarat. I am overwhelmed with the presence of the people on the day of opening. We hope and to stand upto the expectations and love of the people of Bhavnagar and promise to serve them our best,” he said.

The café also offers a unique customized menu at each of its outlet serving the most loved tea snack basis the tastes and preferences of respective demographic locations. 

Indore-based Chai Sutta Bar providing not just flavours in kulhads but also employment to youths from economically weaker sections.

The brand is known for its work towards the upliftment of potter communities, orphans,differently able and people from below poverty line section of the societyby not only lending a hand but also by generating employment opportunities for the said section.

In 2021 only, Chai Sutta Bar has opened 110 outlets while generating employment opportunities for at least 400 people from the economically poor section.

“Over 3 lakh kulhads are used every day. We wanted to help thousands of pottery makers. As we keep expanding, we will require close to 5 lakhs of kulhads every day,” saidAnubhav Dubey, Co-Founder of Chai Sutta Bar.

Now, with the expansion plan for 2022 the company targets to provide employment to more than 500 people with a similar background.

The company uses over 3 lakhs kulhads everyday and supports more than500 potter families. It also employs more than 1500 people from a diverse section of the society with special emphasis on weaker sections.

The company has opened its outlets in 200 cities in India and countries like Dubai and Oman. Nevertheless, the brand has also spread its magic through three outlets in the city of dreams, Mumbai in Vasai, Thane and KoparKhairane recently.

Chaayos is aiming at expanding its presence to 300 stores from 80 currently over the next three years. The tea cafe chain further targets to have 100 stores by the end of the current fiscal year.

The brand is looking to go deeper into Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru, where it is present now, rather than spreading itself thin by entering new markets.

At present, Chaayos has 8 stores in Bengaluru, and 72 in Delhi and Mumbai combined.

Nitin Saluja, Founder of Chaayos, said, “Every store we open becomes profitable in 3-5 months, with no store taking more than 6 months to become profitable. The focus on stores making money is linked to Chaayos becoming profitable by the time it hits the 300-store mark.”

In the current financial year, the New Delhi-based company aims to grow revenue by 60%, without disclosing the revenue number.

“The company has been able to boost its bottom line by 5% due to use of technology, which has helped reduce wastage, improve consistency and improve stock keeping,” Saluja added.

The company has served more than 1.7 million customers, with the average repeat rate of ordering tea standing at 3.5 times a month.

Chaayos Recent Fundraise

Chaayos has recently secured $21.5 million in a mix of equity and debt funding led by Silicon Valley-based Think Investments. The round has also seen participation from existing investors SAIF Partners, Tiger Global and others. It further includes a $3 million debt investment from Innoven Capital.

Prior to its latest funding round, the company had raised $20 million.

Saluja stated, “We will use the capital to do three things, open new stores, building technology and hiring. We’ve also picked up some debt, as a business like ours where stores make a profit, servicing debt makes sense.”

Indian tea café market

Chai is more than just a cup of tea to start the day in India. It is a drink that Indians can’t live without. Indians have been obsessed with tea for almost forever. The obsession can be seen by the fact that Indians drink around 30 cups of tea for every cup of coffee. The country consumes 837,000 tonnes of Tea every year. With such high consumption of the drink, Chai QSR franchises are emerging as a huge business opportunity.

Tea Franchise: A lucrative business model

A tea franchise is a lucrative business model because of the fewer requirements it needs to start it as a business. For instance, a tea stall requires tea leaves, water, sugar, and other kitchen equipment as their basic requirement. And, in a franchise model, you just have to add up the costs of decor, seating inventory, and employees’ salaries, which also do not require much of an investment.

As per sources, a small tea franchise can be started in an average investment of Rs 9-15 lakhs (investment amount increases with the size of the outlet) for the area of about 100-500 sq ft. All of this together makes tea franchise everyone's cup of tea. 

Cold tea cafe chain T-Enjoy has launched two new outlets in New Delhi in Preet Vihar and Karkardoma.

The chain provides 20 different natural flavors and blends, which vary from healthy bubble teas, cheese teas, fruit teas and milk blend teas. Apart from cold teas, T-Enjoy also offers a variety of dishes, including pizzas and pasta.

BM Rastogi, Founder of T-Enjoy, said, “I observed the concept of cold green teas during my many international tours. Bangkok, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia have the concept of cold green tea.”

“I took inspiration from the healthy teas available in China, and decided to introduce them to our own tea-loving country, India. I initiated the process by first sending my team to China, to learn the process of preparing a fine cup of cold tea. The training took almost four months,” he further stated.

Rastogi added, “The first T-Enjoy cafe had opened at Kamla Nagar, New Delhi. A month after its inauguration, we added two more branches to the chain. By the end of 2020, we intend to open 20 more cafes across the country, in cities like Chennai, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Mumbai.”

Tea cafe chain Chaayos has ventured into Bengaluru. The Tiger Global-backed company is aiming to launch 15 cafes across the city by March next year.

The company said in a statement, “Chaayos made its debut in Bengaluru with 3 cafes. It further plans to add 12 more stores across the city by March 2020.”

Presently, Chaayos is operating 65 cafes across Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Chandigarh and Mumbai. It was started by Raghav Verma and Nitin Saluja in November 2012.

Nitin Saluja said, “Today we spread our wings to the seventh city. The potential of Bengaluru market is immense. We plan to have 15 stores by March 2020. We also expect delivery, which currently constitutes about 20 per cent of our overall business, to play a significant role in Bengaluru too.”

Raghav Verma stated, “Given the city's passion for technology, the company is looking forward to Bengaluru's response towards its tech stack.”

Chai Garam is seeking franchise partners to further expand its presence across India. Chai Garam chain of pocket cafes was established in 2008. With a presence in pan India, the brand is currently serving customers through 60 retail and kiosks outlets. 

Chai Garam claims to have served more than 3 million cups of tea. The company serves 20 types of freshly brewed handmade teas, 30 flavours of Milkshakes, Coolers and Iced Teas. It further offers a vast assortment of snacks ranging from Pastas, Sandwiches and Omelettes to Parathas & Samosas.

The tea chain is operating in several modular formats, including indoor kiosk, outdoor kiosk, cart, retail outlets, shop in shop, and food truck. The Tea Cafe is an 1800 crore industry in India.

Chai Garam seeks to partner with enterprising, motivated individuals and offer them an opportunity to become entrepreneurs and grow with them. 

Society Tea has unveiled its flagship tea café ‘Tea Terminal’ in Mumbai. The outlet promises to provide patrons a great cup of tea even outside their homes.

Society Tea brand’s Tea Terminal will also be serving lunch and dinner thalis, grab-and-go breakfasts and lunches (which are nutritious), snacks and Mumbai-style street food.

Karan Shah, director, Blue Kettle (holding company for Tea Terminal), said, “When the realisation happened that a great cup of tea is wishful thinking for many outside of their homes (be it in office or otherwise), Tea Terminal came into being.”

“At Tea Terminal, we are revolutionising tea by making a great cup of tea available outside your home. When was the last time you enjoyed a really nice cup of tea in office? While the chai-tapri near the office is a regular fixture, what if there was a thoughtfully designed place where you got a smile-inducing cup of tea and lip-smacking food that perfectly complimented it. Or, better still, both delivered right to your desk,” he further stated.

Want to invest in a food and beverage franchise? Visit Franchise India 2019, Asia’s Biggest Franchise & Retail Show, and give wings to your entrepreneurial dreams.

By Nusra

Bengaluru- based tea café chain Chai Point has announced the launch of Chai Point Rewards, a loyalty program for its customers.

The Company has launched its new loyalty model approach from cash back driven to product-centric incentives wherein customers can earn points for every rupee spent as they order their favourite beverage whether in the store or online delivery and can redeem points for complimentary drinks.

“With our product focused program, we want to reward the loyalty of our customers and take the program a step further by bringing all of our channels into its scope. This program is bound to evolve in stages and we believe in the near future, we would stand out to be recognized for our endeavors,” shared Amuleek Singh Bijral, Co-founder & CEO, Chai Point.

The program is based on the simple logic of earning ‘Tea Leaves’ (reward points) with every transaction a consumer makes. On every Rs. 10 spent, one Tea Leaf (reward point) can be earned in the customer’s account. On collecting 30 Tea Leaves, the customer gets a FREE chai (hot/iced). The Tea Leaves (reward points) can be collected and spent at Chai Point stores, website, and app.

Additionally, if a customer reloads their Chai Point wallet, they receive an instant cashback of 3% into their wallet. This model has been created to promote cashless transactions and gain customer loyalty.

Chai Point was founded in 2010 by Amuleek Singh Bijral and Professor Tarun Khanna of Harvard Business School and has now grown to become the largest organized Chai Company in India.

Homegrown tea cafe chain Chaayos is looking to scale up its presence in Mumbai and Delhi, and plans to open about 20-30 outlets in the next few months.

Raghav Verma, Co-founder, Chaayos, said, "We are looking at expanding in and around our current hubs Delhi and Mumbai. We are looking to open about 20-30 outlets in the next few months."

Chaayos currently runs 31 outlets across Delhi-NCR and Mumbai.

"We can open another 15-20 outlets in Mumbai itself going forward, as it is under-penetrated. We are looking to open outlets in Pune, Gujarat, Goa, Chandigarh, Jaipur, and highways around NCR this year," he added.

The Tiger Global-backed company is also betting big on the deliveries business, Verma said.

"Our deliveries business is growing rapidly at almost 20 per cent month on month," he said.

"We were earlier investing in third-party deliveries, but now we do it on our own.

"We were not able to deliver the customer experience we expected through third-party deliveries, so we decided to do it ourselves," he said.

Tpot, a foodtech start-up from Delhi, which serves mainly tea and snacks, has managed to raise an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A funding.

The investment has been led by Tpot's principal investor, Ashish Gupta, Founder and Trustee of Ashoka University and Ex-co-founder and COO of Evalueserve.

On an interview conducted by a news portal, Ashish said, "The concept of Tpot Cafe of reaching out to everyone at the same time is unique to the market, and has resulted in extremely rapid growth to date. We are excited to extend our association with the team as they continue to strengthen their market leadership and drive further exciting growth opportunities."

Tpot serves around 40 different varieties of tea from all over the country, such as from kadakdesi chai to Darjeeling organic tea, masala khullad to white teas to its customers. Three years back, it was founded by Robin Jha, Asad, and Atit.

It has all in all 21 outlets spread across Delhi-NCR. It aims to reach the count of 200 outlets at various corporate offices, metro stations and hospitals, by March 2018.

Robin Jha, co-founder, Tpot, said, "We plan to realise the target in a phased manner by opening over 40 outlets by the year end, and are also planning multi-city launches by opening 150-200 outlets by 2018."