Chaayos Raises INR 2 Cr In Funding From Powai Ventures

Offline chai startup, Chaayos has raised over Rs 2 Cr in funding led by Zishaan Hayath from Powai Lake Ventures.

Chaayos works on a theme i.e. “Experiments With Chai”, it services over 25 varieties of tea, ranging from Indian teas like Pahadi chai and Irani chai to international teas like camomile and Moroccan mint tea. It also allows people to customise their chai in their own way; in simple words, it helps people to discover their “meri waali chai”.

The startup had raised the funding round earlier this year in March, founder, Nitin Saluja had confirmed the development and told us that the funds will be used for opening more stores in NCR.

The first Chaayos outlet was launched in November 2012 in DLF Cyber City, Gurgaon, and currently Chaayos have 5 outlets – 3 in Gurgaon and 2 in Noida. It’s serving over 500 odd customers each day at a single outlet.

Previously, in an interaction with Inc42, Nitin told that they are targeting 8-10 outlets in this year in Delhi NCR and then it will move to other geographies.

Further, the company is now in plans to go for institutional round towards end of this year.

Chaayos is a brain-child of two IITians Nitin Saluja and Raghav Verma. Nitin had earlier co-founded robotics education company (Think Labs) at IITB, which is today valued over $10 MM, whereas Raghav had co-founded an online education company called Prepsquare, prior launching Chaayos.

Chaayos competes with outlets like Café Coffee Day, Starbucks and Dunkin donuts.