Positive Food Ventures Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates Brewhouse Tea Brewing Co, has raised an undisclosed sum as part of its pre-Series A fundraising round, it said on Tuesday.
The round in Delhi-based Brewhouse has been led by startup incubator and accelerator Venture Catalysts. Other participants in the fundraise include SN Khurana, a Chandigarh-based businessman.
Brewhouse was set up in 2015 by Siddharth Jain. Per his LinkedIn profile, Jain is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta and has worked with organisations including BNP Paribas Singapore, DBS Bank, and Aon Hewitt.
The company says it aims to promote healthy, affordable and naturally brewed beverages that can be consumed on a regular basis without adverse health effects. To this end, the startup says it sources organic and pesticide-free tea leaves, which are then brewed at its own facility outside Delhi.
Brewhouse’s products include several flavours of iced tea, including Forest Berry, Mojito Lime, Lemon, and Peach. In a statement, Jain said the company will use the capital it has raised to launch an extended range of stock-keeping units and market-relevant products.
“We’re also seeing a healthy pickup in online sales and that makes us further optimistic about our future endeavours,” he added.
Separately, Venture Catalysts co-founder and president Apoorva Ranjan Sharma said the incubator-accelerator was confident in its investment because of Brewhouse’s potential to create its own niche in India’s iced tea market.
“With a visible change in peoples’ eating habits, it is safe to say that the demand for organic food and beverages—especially tea—will increase and see a very faithful fan following in the coming years,” Sharma said.
Apart from online channels that include its own direct-to-consumer presence, Brewhouse says its products have a presence in cinema and hotel chains including INOX, Carnival, Taj, and ITC.
The investment marks the latest startup bet by Venture Catalysts, which also operates an investment vehicle – the 9Unicorns Accelerator Fund – that hit its first close at Rs 100 crore (around $13.7 million) in September.
The incubator and accelerator was set up in 2015 by Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain and Gaurav Jain. It invests between $250,000 and $1.5 million in early-stage startups and provides networking opportunities and mentoring to its portfolio companies.
Some of its recent investments include employee service desk platform Rezolve.ai, retail-technology startup Gully Network, electric vehicle charging services startup Charge+Zone and business-to-business healthcare product distribution platform Biddano.