Chennai: Chai Waale, a native beverage brand that has been taking the Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) industry by storm, has secured another round of funding worth five crores from marquee angel investors. The funding will promote physical and strategic expansion of Chai Waale throughout the city.
Investors both, existing and new have fuelled this round of funding for Chai Waale. Chai Waale’s illustrious list of angel investors include Sunil Sethia; Sunil Kumar Singhvi, Manish Mardia, UNI-M Network, a Mumbai-based angel network and the celebrities Nayanthara& Vignesh Shivan. Additionally, private organisations such as Unlisted Kart LLP (online trading platform of unlisted shares) from Bangalore and Conscience Multi-Family office based out of Chennaiamong other investors are playing a major role in this round of funding.
“We value our investors and are indebted for their solid support. We are ever grateful to our existing investors who have shown so much faith in the brand that they have been integral in this round of funding, as well. 80% of the current funding will be utilised in physical store expansion. We aim to have 35 fully functioning stores by the next year. Rest of the funds will be earmarked for marketing, expansion of back-end systems & managerial team,” said, Vidur Maheswari, Founder, Chai Waale.
The home-grown QSR brand is planning to set shop in places with high footfalls including Metro stations and malls, at the same time it is leaning towards fulfilling the tea and snack needs of the entire family. To suit the taste buds of the entire family, Chai Waale has recently added soups, momos and an additional range of sandwiches to itsmenu. Additionally, new flavours of ice-tea, desserts and some quick items are in the pipeline.
Given that the need of the hour is cloud deliveries, Chai Waale has managed to steer through the digital ordering space with ease, with specially designed packaging and intensive hygiene protocols to ensure safe handover online as well as in store.
“Since the first lockdown, we have adopted stringent-hygiene processes and safety measures that gave us the confidence about serving our customers safely through online channels. During the unlock phases, we increased our digital marketing and e-commerce budgets to acquire a new customer base online apart from our existing loyal customer base.” added Vidur Maheswari.
“We are bullish about our growth trajectory in the upcoming year, given the robust set of investors”, concluded Vidur.
