Radiohead Brands Raises $1.3 MN from Prath Ventures, Vijay Shekhar Sharma & Others

Gurgaon based startup, Radiohead Brands, makers of the category leading brand Jimmy’s® has announced its transformation into a multi-beverage brands company, broadening its offerings beyond Jimmy’s® Cocktails and Sparkling Mixers. 

As part of this expansion, the company introduces ‘Hustle’ Energy drink, conceived with a view to disrupt the Energy Drinks category. 

To fund this expansion Radiohead also announced its recent fundraise, an extension of its earlier Pre-Series A round. 

The company’s valuation grew 3x over last year and 20x over last three years since it started its operations. 

The round was led by Prath Ventures which also saw participation from prominent angels like Vijay Shekhar Sharma of (PayTM) and Neel Bahl. Existing investors Keki Mistry (HDFC), Vishesh Khurana (Shiprocket), 7Square Ventures, Vidur Talwar (T&T Motors) and Anirudh Somani (CLSA). 

The company had raised ₹14 crore last year March in an investment round led by Roots Ventures.

“Almost all categories in India have seen consumers’ willingness to upgrade to better quality products and pay a premium for it, be it in technology, real estate, fashion, automobiles or spirits. Packaged beverage as a category, however, is stuck at lower end of the price segment which is unique to the Indian sub-continent. We are disrupting this and building a multi beverage brands company at the premium end with better quality products built on the back of sharp positioning and clutter breaking packaging,” shared Ankur Bhatia, Founder and CEO Radiohead Brands.

The company plans to enter several new categories in open white spaces still untapped by the beverage majors over the next few years and has an ambition to reach ₹100 crore revenue run-rate by next year building to a ₹1000 crore revenue company within the decade. 
In FY23, Radiohead Brands revenues grew over 75% and the brand Jimmy’s is now available at over 20,000 retail outlets, wine shops and prominent bars in over 50 cities, as well as all leading ecommerce platforms. 

The brand also operates a D2C business delivering from their website DrinkJimmys.com, to over 400 cities in India.

“We have a ready platform to launch Hustle with route to market already built on the back of Jimmy’s. We see immense potential in the Energy Drinks segment, with our sharp brand positioning and teams with deep category experience, we are confident we will fast be a dominant player in this category as well,” added Nitin Bhardwaj, Co-founder and COO Radiohead Brands.

As per Piyush Goenka, founder of Prath Ventures, “Radiohead Brands is our play on the high-growth premium beverages segment in India. Ankur and Nitin are the best team to build in this market with a strong understanding of brand building and distribution. The company’s products have huge customer love and are well accepted by the trade. We believe the company is set to emerge as a leading premium beverage player in a few years with a diversified portfolio of brands and products.” 

Founded by Ankur Bhatia & Nitin Bhardwaj in 2019, its first brand Jimmy’s® claims to have moved ahead of all other start-ups competing in the same space, having served over 12 million drinks in FY’23. It now plans to use its deep category experience, already established route to market and unique ability to build brands fast and frugal to dominate the premium energy drinks segment.