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Maker of Bira 91 craft beer has raised $8 million in fresh round of funding from Sequoia Capital. The company now aims to enter in five new markets.
B9 Beverages Pvt Ltd, maker of Bira 91 craft beer, has raised nearly $8 million in fresh round of funding from well-known VC firm Sequoia Capital India, informed Ankur Jain – founder of the company. This is the third time that B9 Beverages has raised funds from Sequoia Capital, taking company’s total fund raising to around $30 million.
Jain said that the latest fund infusion will help B9 Beverages to enter into five new lucrative markets – the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and UAE. The company had entered the highly competitive U.S. market in April last year, launching its flagship beer Bira 91 during the popular Tribeca Film Festival. Jain revealed that the U.S. market’s response to its flagship beer has been pretty encouraging.
With the company planning foray into new markets, it has also set sight on increasing its manufacturing capacity. Jain said that the B9 Beverages plans to set up a third plant in Rajasthan before the next summer. This will help the company to triple its annual capacity to 12 million from the current 3 million beer bottles per year.
Additionally, the company nurtures an ambitious plan to set a manufacturing plant in the U.S. before the next summer. The ambitious move will help the beer maker in consolidating its base in the highly competitive American market. Currently, it imports beer from Belgium for the American market.
B9 Beverages started selling Bira 91 in 2014 with an aim to get a deeper foothold in the craft beer market. Craft beer is relatively new category in India, but is growing at an impressive 20% every year. The impressive growth rate evidently propelled Sequoia Capital to take a huge bet on B9 Beverages. Today Sequoia is the largest investor in the company. The other investors in the company include Shantanu Rastogi (managing director of General Atlantic), Alok Misra (senior vice president of General Atlantic), Naik Family Trust 2013 and Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal (Co-founders of Snapdeal).
