Tpot Cafe, a startup that operates a chain of tea shops across Delhi, has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding from Ashish Gupta, former COO of Evalueserve and founder and trustee of Ashoka University.
The startup will use the fresh funds to expand its presence in and outside Delhi. It plans to open 19 more outlets by the year end and 150-200 outlets in at least 4-5 cities by March 2018. The company also plans to aggressively focus on the corporate sector and has inked a partnership with digital wallet company Paytm to strengthen its retail expansion in the sector.
Tpot, founded by Robin Jha, Asad Khan and Atit Verma, currently has 21 outlets across Delhi/NCR. It plans to add new outlets at corporate offices, metro stations and hospitals soon. It claims to generate around Rs 6 crore in revenue currently and aims to hit Rs 12 crore by March 2017.
Owned and operated by Shivanta Agro Foods Private Limited, Tpot serves over 40 varieties of tea.
“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. Besides, the company is also expected to introduce varied range of packaged tea and delivery of refreshments at home,†Jha said.
The startup had raised an undisclosed amount of seed investment from Gupta in May this year.
India, which hosts coffee chains like Bengaluru-based Café Coffee Day and US-based Starbucks, among others, has recently seen a lot of action in the tea space too.
Last month, Ahmedabad-based specialty tea startup The Kettlery raised seed funding from shooter and investor Abhinav Bindra’s fund Shooting Star Sports LLP and Franchise India Brands.
On demand tea-ordering startup Chai Point raised $10 million (Rs 67 crore) from Eight Roads Ventures early last year.
Last year, tea chain brand Chaayos raised $5 million (Rs 33.5 crore) from Tiger Global. Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, co-founders of Tiger Global-backed cab aggregator Ola, also participated in the round.
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