[W]hile quite a bit has changed in 400 years, the tea industry still looks fairly similar to the days when the East India Company would spend weeks and months transporting product from origin to tea drinkers all over the world. Vahdam Teas aims to disrupt that centuries-old model by working directly with tea growers in India to procure fresh leaves, package the tea itself, and ship directly to consumers in the U.S. market, all within days of harvest.
The company seems poised to fulfill its mission as founder Bala Sarda secures $2.5 million in series B funding, led by Fireside Ventures, which also led Vahdam’s Series A funding in 2017 and provided an extra $650K in early 2018. In the two years since the company was founded, Vahdam has secured a total of $5 million from investors, has a new warehouse in India, a new office space set up in New York, and is currently valued at an estimated $25 million. While the company has already shipped more than 100 million cups of tea, Vahdam will be using its new funding to ramp up customer acquisitions rates and build its direct-to-consumer platform.
