A UK-based Indian wine company, seeking to establish its brand in the global market, has launched a campaign to raise 350,000 pounds through an online crowd-funding platform.
Soul Tree seeks to raise around 350,000 pounds for 16.5 per cent of the business on the crowd-funding platform Crowdcube and has already raised 30 per cent of the target, or 107,000 pounds from 47 investors within weeks of launching the campaign, co-founder of the company, Alok Mathur said.
The Oxford MBA alumni, who set up the company alongside classmate Melvin D'Souza, said the brand "has proved to be popular internationally, with investments so far coming from countries like Australia, India, Singapore, Dubai, and the UK.
Indian wines are relatively new entrants to the 12.3-billion pounds UK wine industry.
Soul Tree hopes to spread distribution across the majority of the 10,000-odd Indian restaurants in the country over the next three years.
"The UK market alone has more than 10,000 Indian restaurants and sells millions of Indian takeaways each week. Soul Tree wines not only complement, but enhance spicy cuisines and the sector has huge, almost untapped, potential," D'Souza said.
"The wines are already breaking into the mainstream with Michelin star restaurants and some great boutique hotels embracing the wines," he said.
Soul Tree also hopes to bring a number of small, independent grape farmers in India's primary wine grape growing district of Nasik some international exposure by taking wines made from their harvests to the major wine drinking regions of the world.
The brand currently specialises in two reds, a white, a rose, an oak-matured reserve, and a sparkling wine.
