Subko Coffee Roasters, a speciality coffee and cocoa startup, has bagged $10 million in a fresh funding round from Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath and others, valuing the company at approximately $34 million post-money. This funding round also witnessed participation from the Blume Founders Fund, The Gauri Khan Family Trust and actor John Abraham, among others.
"Nikhil's participation is not just an investment but a testament to our brand's potential. His genuine desire to enable the growth of homegrown Indian brands and ability to intertwine complex value judgments in consumer markets aligns perfectly with our mission. I am also deeply grateful to all the investors as well who have supported us before Nikhil’s arrival on board,” said Rahul Reddy, Founder, CEO, and Creative Director of Subko.
Reddy said the company was committed to facilitating calibrated, quality-first expansion of Subko's craft café experiences to select Indian cities and potentially to global capitals.
The startup will use fresh capital towards enhancing the talent pool, developing tech-enabled customer experiences, bolstering product and design R&D, improving farm-level infrastructure for speciality green coffee and fine cacao beans, and launching new 'ready to drink' coffee products.
According to the company, Subko is also planning a rollout of flagship experience cafés in different formats across select cities in India and globally.
“My journey with Subko, transitioning from a customer to an investor, has given me unique insights into the brand's evolution and potential. I am eagerly looking forward to witnessing the brand's narrative unfold and flourish in the coming years,” said Nikhil Kamath.
Subko offers caffeinated drinks along with baked bread-pastries and coffee roasters. It competes with Third Wave Coffee, Blue Tokai, Rage Coffee, Slay Coffee, Sleepy Owl, and Seven Beans Co. Interestingly, Kamath is also an investor in Third Wave Coffee.
Subko sources speciality coffee, fine cacao, and wheat directly from farmers and emphasises hyper-traceability, which involves tracking and documenting every step in the supply chain, including recent block-chain-enabled coffee and pioneering direct tipping systems for coffee farmers.
The brand works in direct trade relationships with coffee estates and smallholder farmers harvesting and processing coffee and cacao, roasting and transforming the agricultural produce into fine speciality finished goods, and along with its bakehouse, showcases the products in flagship cafes and ‘mini’ pop up stores in addition to shipping products pan-India, and globally.
