Chaayos raises $21.5 mn funds for business expansion, to open 300 cafes

Tea cafe chain Chaayos on Tuesday said it has raised $21.5 million in a mix of equity and debt funding to further expand its business. It said that the company is looking at opening 300 cafes over the next 3-4 years.

"Continued confidence of our guests has allowed us to expand our caf network at a fast pace and we will end FY20 with nearly 100 cafes. We shall endeavour to get to 300 cafes over the course of next 3-4 years," Chaayos founder and CEO Nitin Saluja said in a statement.

Alongside growing the network, the company will continue to invest into technology and augment team across all levels, he added.

"Chaayos, India's first neo-cafe chain has raised $21.5 million in a mix of equity and debt financing. The $18.5 million equity round was led by SF based Think Investment and also got participation from existing investors Tiger Global, SAIF Partners and others. Innoven Capital participated with $3 million venture debt," Saluja said.

The company, he said, is a technology driven chai cafe and guests can choose chai from over 80,000 customisations.

"The latest addition to Chaayos technology stack offers a magical guest experience via facial recognition for logging in, for repeating your usual Chai and for making payments without hassles of OTP," he said.

The company has 1.7 million registered guests across 80 cafes in eight cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Noida, Gurugram, Chandigarh and Faridabad. It now plans to expand to other key cities across India.