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Specialty coffee startup Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters has raised Rs 17 crore in a pre-Series B bridge round led by Anicut Angel Fund, the equity arm of Anicut Capital, with participation from other new and existing investors.

Blue Tokai Coffee will use the funding to launch new products, execute farm-level interventions to improve quality, expand internationally, as well as for marketing. 

The company was started to source, roast and highlight specialty-grade Indian coffee in contrast to the instant coffee or filter coffee most commonly available in the country. Blue Tokai was started in Gurugram in 2012 in response to the lack of accessibility of fresh and high quality coffee.

The company started out selling their coffee online and through B2B partnerships, and then sought to provide the complete coffee experience through their cafes, which are now spread across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Hyderabad.  

During COVID-19, Co-founders Matt Chitharanjan, Namrata Asthana, and Shivam Shahi refocused their efforts on their online business to expand their reach and has now expanded their business online to be able to make their coffee a household name across the country.

Speaking about the recent funding, Matt Chitharanjan, Co-founder at Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters, said,

“We’ve been omnichannel in our approach since the very early stages of our business. Our mission has always been very simple – make high-quality coffee more accessible – regardless of where, when and how you drink your coffee, we want to give the option of having high-quality Indian coffee. Cafes were an important part of that mission, but like many brands, COVID-19 completely upended the economics of that business. ”

“We were fortunate to already have a strong D2C presence and by refocusing our efforts on our online sales channels, we’ve been able to grow our revenue nearly 50 percent more than our pre-covid peak,” he added.

“We have been extremely impressed by Blue Tokai’s story of starting a coffee business in India, how they chose the farms they work with today, their roasteries and more, to be able to set the tone for the culture they’re about to make their customers experience,” added Ashvin Chadha, Co-founder, Anicut Angel Fund.