Chai Point is an Indian tea company and a cafe chain which focuses on tea-based beverages. As of October, 2017, the company also started selling their teas on Amazon.in, making it their first foray into distribution via the e-commerce platform. Chai Point's motto of "India runs on Chai" is apt for Indians' love for tea.
History
Chai Point was founded in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India in 2010 by Amuleek Singh. The name Chai Point is derived from the word Chai which is the Hindi word for tea.[1] Amuleek Singh, the founder and current CEO of Chai Point is a Harvard Graduate. After he obtained his engineering degree from Thapar University, Punjab, India, he worked with Microsoft for some time. After this once he completed his MBA from Harvard, that's when he wanted to work on a startup.[citation needed]
Chai Teas[2] is an integral part of a large majority of Indian home and different varieties of teas are also not alien to most of the Indians. Amuleek Singh, however, created an entire ecosystem of making the tea and its packaging more appealing to white collar Indians who were latching on to the high end coffee joints.[3]
Locations
Chai Point has presence in eight Indian cities with presence across retail locations, airports, and business parks. In addition to physical format stores, the chain has a delivery service and a vending based solution called 'Vending as a Service'[1]' focused primarily at corporation.
Model
Unlike other similar beverage chains, which run on a Basic Franchise Model, Chai Point runs on a company-owned store Model. [citation needed]
Investors
Chai Point raised a total of ₹71.2 crore ($10 million) in round one of funding in September, 2015. On April 19, 2018, tea retailer Chai Point said it had raised ₹132 crore ($20 million) in series C funding, its single-largest round so far.[4] Key investors in Chai Point include:[citation needed]
- Eight Road Ventures (Lead Investor, formerly Fidelity Growth Partners India)
- DSG Investors
- Saama Capital
- Paragon Partners [5][6]
References
- ^ "Get your favourite Chai delivered in 30 mins - Chai Point". chaipoint.com.
- ^ Jha, Gaurav (16 November 2023). "The Benefits of Drinking Chai Tea for Digestion". The Pahadi Story. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Balakrishnan, Reghu (31 March 2015). "Harvard, IIT graduates are tea sellers, too". Business Standard India. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
- ^ "Chai Point to invest up to Rs 120 mn, add 30 stores in FY19". Business Standard. 22 June 2018. Archived from the original on 22 June 2018. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
- ^ "Chai Point raises $20 million in Series C funding from Paragon Partner". www.livemint.com. 19 April 2018.
- ^ "Chai Point gets $20 million fresh funds from Paragon Partners-led investors". The Hindu. 19 April 2018. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 27 October 2019.