//

The funds raised from Snow Leopard Ventures and Bold Ventures will be used to open roasteries across India

Matt Chitharanjan and Namrata Asthana, Founders of Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters

Delhi-based online specialty coffee retailer, Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters, has raised an undisclosed amount in seed financing from Snow Leopard Ventures and Bold Ventures.

Blue Tokai, which recently set up a roastery and café in Delhi, will invest the money to open more roasteries in other major cities, starting with Mumbai in mid-2016.

It will also use the capital to launch new products and improve its online platform.

“We have already built a loyal and steadily growing clientele over the last few years and are now ready to expand the market and bring the specialty coffee experience to a whole new set of customers,” said Co-founder Matt Chitharanjan.

Founded in 2012 by Chitharanjan and Namrata Asthana, Blue Tokai sources single-estate Arabica coffee beans from premium Indian coffee estates. The firm then roasts them on order, and sells them online directly to consumers and offline to leading cafes, restaurants and hotels across the country.

By sourcing beans directly from growers and doing the coffee roasting in-house, Blue Tokai retains control over the quality of its coffee and the customer service experience.

Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters has entered into direct sourcing agreements with coffee farmers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It has also introduced the concept of profile roasting — an advanced roasting technique that adjusts roasting temperature and duration according to the coffee bean’s profile, in order to extract the best flavour from the bean.

Coffee beans are roasted twice a week at its roastery in Delhi and shipped to customers the very next day.

Soaib Grewal from Bold Ventures said: “They have great farmer relationships, solid distribution, a strong technology backbone, an effective brand and, above all, a phenomenal product. Coffee consumption in India has been increasing at a steady rate over the last few years and we believe Blue Tokai will lead the specialty coffee market. They are building a fast-growing and loyal community of coffee lovers, ensuring easy access to high quality affordable Indian single estate coffee.”

Recently, India’s online tea retailer Teabox received an undisclosed sum in equity funding from Ratan Tata.

The post Blue Tokai gets funding to deliver roasted coffee to your doorsteps appeared first on e27.

from e27 http://ift.tt/1nY1GKP