Singapore-based angel investor and tea speacialist “Cameron Jones” invested an undisclosed amount in Teabox, a Siliguri based startup. It’s noteworthy it happened just four months after Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons invested in the startup. Besides all this firm also raised venture debt from DBS Bank Limited (DBS) which is SouthEast Asia’s largest banking, and financial services company.
Teabox provides the services to the worldwide tea market. The raised funds will be used for expansion purposes. Growth and innovation for global markets are next points in the agenda.
Working of Teabox-
Kaushal Dugar, CEO Teabox, founded the company in 2012. It stand out as a premium tea brand focusing on bringing sourcing, branding, and distribution of teas on single platform. It ensures to keep the traditional tea-retailing model in the transaction. It has integrated with for more than 150 estates across Darjeeling, Assam, Nilgiris and Nepal. In these four years till now firm claimed to have served customers across 94 countries and has plans to target 100 countries by the end of 2016.
This capital will give us additional resources to expand strategically into new markets, innovate rapidly, and deliver on our vision around the world,” said Kaushal Dugar, Founder and CEO of Teabox.
Revenues & Market-
Teabox generated 95 percent of their revenue from customers outside India said Dugar in last funding round. Currently major regions are US, European Union, Middle East. But now they want to concentrate and penetrate Indian market as well this year.
Words from Investor-
Cameron said, “I invested in Teabox because it is well positioned to become the global premium tea brand in the world, and I want to back them in growing their business on a global scale.”
Some important points-
- Firm appointed Nicole Naumoff in North America who will handle
launch of new products and partnerships to build a brand name there. - Amit Sharma was appointed CTO at Teabox today.
- Firm observed 2.5 times growth as compared to last year.
- In 2014, firm raised USD 1 million seed fund from Accel Ventures & Horizon Ventures.
- In March 2015, USD 6 million was raised in Series A led by JAFCO Asia.
Scenario of Tea industry in India
- India is the second largest tea producer in the world and
- India is ranked fourth in terms of tea exports. India’s tea exports during 2015-16 reached 220.84 million kg, which is valued at $641.95 million.
- Tea production in India is led by Assam (304.40 thousand hectares), West Bengal (140.44 thousand hectares), Tamil Nadu (69.62 thousand hectares) and Kerala (35.01 thousand hectares).
- India’s second largest employer is tea industry employing over 3.5 million people across 1,686 estates and 157,504 small holdings.
