Tea is that one beverage that every person around the world inclines towards. Be it the normal steeped black tea or even the flavourful chai tea, the options are quite extensive, if you come to think of it. Vahdam tea is one of the fastest growing start-ups from the Indian market that has been spreading their business to international market owing to their amazing quality products.
Vahdam teas, as mentioned before, are an Indian e-commerce based start-up which sells fresh tea in the international market. The startup has successfully closed a major financing round with its vision to expand their business to US and Europe.
The start-up, which started 3 years before, finally acquired their round-C financing round by raising $11 million in funding to help expand their business to US and Europe. If the reports are to be suggested, the start-up is currently valued at $40 million with Sixth Sense Ventures being behind the investment around. In addition to that, Fireside Ventures, which is already an investor have contributed their part in this round as well.
Some of the other investors in this round of funding include Mankind Group Family office, Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, SAR Group Family office, Zomato co-founder Pankaj Chaddah and Urmin Group family office. This tea company, which has it’s headquarter stationed at New Delhi and New York has already raised $16 million till date.
The start-up found its inception by Bala Sarda, a 28-year old entrepreneur who belongs to a tea industry family. Vahdam tea has acquired quite a boost to their growth, being a sole trader seller and they have also clubbed with other e-commerce giants like Amazon to be able to sell their items directly to the international consumers.
The primary reason why this brand has gained the subsequent boost is because it cuts down on the middleman interference. This reduces down the time it takes to ship the tea to the consumers.
Bala addressed this saying, “If you look at the supply chain for exporting from India, it’s completely broken. The goods go through distributors, then get sold to exporters. Somewhere in the middle, brokers show up, too. Then an importer imports the tea. It all takes months to get a supply cycle to reach consumers. Unlike wine or whiskey, tea is best when it is fresh. Its ingredients lose flavor with time.”
To mitigate this issue, Vahdam tea addressed the issue and developed a supply chain network to source the tea from hundreds of gardens around the world. All the products and items from the brand are stored in the warehouse in New Delhi and then exported out to the salient spots and international areas that the orders come from.
The primary factors that makes Vahdam tea one of the most recognized is the fact that they ensure faster delivery of tea along with better control of the associated supply chain around.
Being elated, Sarda said that more than 90% of the sales that Vahdam tea generates comes from international purchases. This was the primary reason why the business needs to venture out to international market more, especially around US and Europe.
Majority of the capital generated in this financial round is going to be used in bulking up the supply chain network along with acquiring offices in US as well as Europe. Sarda clarified these in one of the interviews conducted by TechCrunch.
In addition to that expansion, this tea start-up is also working to launch more products and creep into the markets around in South Asia and UAE.
Along with the online presence that they have, Vahdam tea owners also want to embellish the brand as an offline store as well. This is another prospect that they are working on. They are planning on bringing the Vahdam tea to over 500-700 stores in the United States. They want to have an omni-channel approach.
Even though India is responsible for producing 25% of world’s tea, the Indian brands are often neglected and not paid much attention to.
With so many altercations, Vahdam tea is definitely a difference to that concept. The investors of this brand are quite impressed with how the founder of the brand has worked to spread their world out into the global market. The innovative marketing ideas compared with the ethnic tea flavours and such outreach, the brand is definitely set to make all the difference.
