Blue Tokai raises Rs 17 cr in pre-series B bridge round led by Anicut Angel

The company started out selling its specialty coffee online and via B2B partnerships; then sought to provide the complete coffee experience through cafes

Specialty coffee startup Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters has raised Rs 17 crore in pre-series B bridge round led by Anicut Angel Fund, the equity arm of Anicut Capital, with participation from other new and existing investors. 

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

Blue Tokai was started in Gurgaon in 2012 in response to the lack of accessibility of fresh and high quality coffee. 

The company started out selling its coffee online and through business-to-business partnerships, and then sought to provide the complete coffee experience through cafes that now run across Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Hyderabad.  

During Covid, the co-founders Matt Chitharanjan, Namrata Asthana and Shivam Shahi, refocused their efforts on their online business to reach more customers and the firm has now expanded their business online to be able to make their coffee a household name across the country. 

The brand has worked at making high-quality coffee more accessible to people across the country.

“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 (direct-to-customer) 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,” said Matt Chitharanjan, Co-founder at Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters.

The company began as a way to source, roast and highlight specialty-grade Indian coffee in contrast to the instant coffee or filter coffee most commonly available in the country. 

Apart from launching rare and high-scoring experimental lots of coffee, the company has focused on developing ready-to-brew and ready-to-drink products in order for people to more easily experience the variety of flavour that specialty coffee offers.  

In addition to releasing more products in these segments, the company is also executing several projects to enable more small scale growers to improve their quality and in turn reap the premium that specialty coffee sells for.  

“We are privileged and delighted to partner with the entire Blue Tokai team as they march ahead in their mission to introduce people to great-tasting coffee grown in India and set a coffee culture through their cafes and website. We have been extremely impressed by Blue Tokai’s story of starting a coffee business in India, how they chose the farms they work with today, their roasteries and more, to be able to set the tone for the culture they’re about to make their customers experience.”, said Ashvin Chadha, Co-founder, Anicut Angel Fund.