Tea Trails aims for foreign expansion

India is second largest tea consuming mkt in the world

 Tea Trails, a fast-growing tea cafe chain in the country, plans to spread its wings outside the country next year, according to a top company executive.

“We have already got interest from franchisees in the Middle East. Currently, we are focussed on expansion in the country. At some time, we will look at international expansion and 2017 could be the year when we go international,”  Tea Trails co-founder Uday Mathur told Deccan Herald.

The company had forayed into South India with its first cafe in Hyderabad’s Banjara Hills last month, its first outlet outside the Mumbai metro region. The company is run by Zone8 Tea World, and is looking at a huge expansion plan in the country, besides a small fund raising exercise. Other tea café chains in the country include Chaayos and Chai Point.

“India is the second largest tea consuming market in the world, and there is a lack of organised tea café operators in the country. Tea Trails aspires to cater to this latent demand, and be the category creator with cast franchisee network. As far as our network expansion is concerned, we plan to open 500 outlets by 2020 from 10 currently, with a major concentration in the top 20 cities of the country,” Mathur said.

“We had raised Rs 6.5 crore in our first round of funding from high networth individuals, and plan to raise another $3-4 million in the next 3-4 months in Series B funding,” Mathur added.