Sunshine Teahouse, the parent of Indian tea chain Chaayos, has raised US$21.5 million in a new funding round.
The fundraising, led by US firm Think Investments and including $3 million of venture debt from InnoVen Capital, will assist the firm to increase its store count to 300 within three to four years.
“We will deploy the capital to expand our store network, hire a few more senior people, and invest more in technology,” Chaayos founder and CEO Nitin Saluja said in an article published by Livemint.
Tea chain Chaayos is noted for its use of an IoT-enabled teamaker, called Chai Monk.
“We have structured ourselves as a neo-retail business, which is a traditional retail business heavily leveraged on technology,” said Saluja. “The entire technology stack that Chaayos runs on has been developed in-house and we have filed for multiple patents as well”.