MILAN – Rage Coffee on Tuesday said it has raised USD 5 million in funding from Sixth Sense Ventures. Rage Coffee – an Indian digital-native FMCG brand – manufactures, markets and distributes innovative coffee products globally. Its products are retailed through their own website, online platforms and over 1,000 offline touch points through a network of distributors. Founded in 2018 by Bharat Sethi and Arijit Mitra, Rage Coffee was recently accepted into Amazon’s Global Selling Accelerator Programme that takes Indian brands to global markets through its network.
The company is planning to expand its online presence and offline footprint pan-India and will utilise the fresh capital for marketing and distribution purposes, a statement said.
Rage Coffee will also use the funds to scale production, launch innovative new products and add senior management talent, it added.
Rage exuded confidence that it is well-positioned to be the brand of choice for the next-generation of coffee consumers. The company has launched flavoured instant coffee along with products such as roast coffee, and cold brew coffee bags.
“We plan to double down on our efforts across all the channels. We are successfully building a truly omnichannel FMCG brand, with distribution strategies being implemented for the first time, given our digital DNA. In fact, our D2C channel has grown 10x during the pandemic,” Rage Coffee founder and CEO Bharat Sethi said.
He added that with this round of funding, the company has its sights set on fulfilling global demand as well with distributor partners in US, Europe and GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) markets that are already working with it.
”We see ourselves continuously developing innovative new products in the years to come,” he said.
Nikhil Vora, CEO and founder of Sixth Sense Ventures, said Rage Coffee’s vision is perfectly aligned with its own philosophy – a disruptive product (flavoured instant coffee), developed by a maverick founder, with a vision to disrupt a large category (Rs 7,000 crore-plus segment in India). ”With increasing adoption of the cafe culture and changing consumer preferences within hot beverages (in favour of coffee), our sense is that the segment will witness a strong increase in penetration,” he added.
