Chai Point IPO: A tea selling company may soon be seen entering the stock market. Chai Point, a company running a tea cafe chain in many cities of the country, is planning to bring its Initial Public Offer (IPO) by next year 2026. The company's co-founder Tarun Khanna has confirmed this. The company claims that it sells about 10 lakh cups of tea every day, and recently during the Maha Kumbh, it also achieved a special feat of selling 1 lakh cups of tea in a day.
How did Chai Point start?
Chai Point's journey began in 2009 in a Mumbai cafe, when Harvard University professor Tarun Khanna and his student Amuleek Singh Bijral saw a small boy selling tea on the roadside. Seeing this boy selling tea in dirty plastic cups, they got an idea – can tea be sold on a large scale in a clean and economical way? With this thought, the first Chai Point cafe opened in Koramangala, Bangalore in 2010.
Recalling the journey of Chaai Point, Khanna said, "When Amulik and I started this startup together, we had 5 employees – most of them were store employees." Within two years, Chaai Point began expanding outside Bengaluru and first opened stores in Delhi. Then expanded to Mumbai and Pune.
Today, the company sells more than 9,00,000 cups of tea daily. It also sells a wide range of snacks including sandwiches, Maggi, pakoras. The company claims that all of its products are available at much lower rates than other big café chains.
"We have more than 170 stores now and the number is growing. We plan to open 300 more stores in the next 2 years," Tarun Khanna said. Its model is both walk-in and sitting area format. We now also do delivery. Out of our 170 stores, 60 stores have sitting areas while the rest 110 are walk-ins."
"We are currently adding 10 stores per month and deploying 500 bots per month. Our target is to add 20 stores per month and deploy 750 bots per month in the next one year," he said. "We currently have around 1,400 employees. With every store, 6 more employees are added and 95 percent of the growth in the headcount is happening this way," the co-founder said. The firm is deploying over 500 bots every month and wants to take it to 750 bots in the next 12 months.
The secret formula and the magic of technology
"Just like Coke or Pepsi, we have our own secret formula for making tea. People often say that their mother makes the best tea and I would have no hesitation in saying that Chai Point tastes close to an 8 or 9 on that scale," Khanna said.
Vending Machine Service – Under the 'Vending as a Service' model, 'Chai Bots' are also being installed in offices and hospitals. Their 'Chai Bot' technology is based on AWS and GCP cloud platforms, which makes the process of making tea absolutely accurate and delicious through real-time data monitoring, AI and IoT.
New beginning after covid
Chai Point suffered a major setback during Covid, with many stores closing and many employees moving to other companies. But the company rebuilt its tech team, and moved the production of Chai Bots from China to India. According to Tarun Khanna, Chai Point is now planning to get listed on the stock market by May 2026.
Currently, 25 percent stake of the company is held by founders, employees and early investors. The remaining stake is held by institutional investors. Tarun Khanna said that Chai Point is already profitable at the EBITDA level and is planning to become PBT (Profit Before Tax) cash-flow positive in the next 4-5 months. The company has also received offers to expand abroad, but they are still considering the right entry strategy.
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