- ₹1.3 million as venture debt comes from Chennai-based Anicut Capital an early investor of Bira 91.
- Latest Funding is a part of ₹5.6 million round which has been ongoing since June last year.
Happy times for craft-beer brand Bira91 as it managed to bad ₹1.3 million in its funding. Anicuta Capital along with Sequoia Capital, Sixth Sense Venture are some of the known entities to play a vital role in Bira91 funding.
However, our 5-year-old brand Bira91 witnessed losses as high as ₹202.2 crores last year making it the 2nd consecutive year in its financial dent. While revenue of Bira91 grew marginally in the last 2 years.
Founded by Ankur Jain, Bira91 is India’s first bottled craft beer startups which are growing fast in Inia and overseas as well. Bira is currently operational in the US and with ₹1.3 million added to Bira91 funding, it will mark its presence to other geographies as well.
“We had tepid growth last year largely on account of delays in commissioning our new brewing capacity and were maxed out in terms of production. Our new breweries that were supposed to go live in FY19 that only went live in the 2nd half of FY20.” – Ankur Jain
What Will Bira91 Do with All the Funding?
The company shoots towards rolling our not less than 40-50 different limited beer in the next one year. The team is said to launch one new beer a week, brewed in small batches at its newest brewery in Mysore.
“We will release almost 40-50 beers just this year and every time a consumer comes in and buys a beer, they can vote for it, rate it and give us feedback.” – added by Ankur Jain.
With seven beers in its portfolio and an eighth on the way, Jain said the company was bracing for high growth in the next year.
Expanding to new geographical locations is not easy when a new product launch is scheduled almost every week. But things get a bit smooth with news falling in the favor of Bira91 funding.
Amid surmounting losses, Bira91 is trying to go with a guerrilla strategy. Not only want to be on the shelves of all the beer bars, but they also want to be the most dynamic beer in terms of flavor.
“We have been responsible for almost a third of the overall beer market growth in the year in terms of value. We’ve doubled our market share and that’s been possible because when we started calendar 2019, we had a capacity of 4-5 million cases in the full year, but when the year ended our capacity has grown to 20 million cases.” – added by Ankur Jain
Ankur Jain seems to do be doing something good and hyperactive with all the Bira91 funding.
Ending Note:
While Bira’s taproom is still an experiment, the company is really pinning its hopes on the concept of driving its innovation cycle not only to attract customers but also to investors.
With all the money added in Bira91 funding, the company is out on a journey to mark its imprints in the Indian beer industry.
