New Delhi-based cafe chain Chaayos has announced that it has raised $53 million in its Series C round. The funding was led by Alpha Wave Ventures, with participation from its existing investors Elevation Capital, Tiger Global Management, and Think Investments.

“We are excited to partner with Chaayos. Its team has been able to deliver personalised tea consistently well at scale through proprietary systems and technology. We are impressed by the team’s customer obsession, which is visible in its best-in-class unit economics and customer NPS," said Navroz Udwadia, Co-founder, Alpha Wave Global.

The chai-cafe chain was founded in 2012 by Nitin Saluja and Raghav Verma with the aim to digitalise the chai cafe experience of the public. Chaayos employs an AI platform that enables a seamless guest experience, such as its facial recognition software, faster checkouts and payments. By 2022, they have set up 190 stores across six metropolitan cities and plan to add a hundred more by year-end.

The latest investment will be used to enhance the current technology, hiring and scaling up the brand expansion.

Nitin Saluja, Founder and CEO, Chaayos, said, “Very early on in our journey, we took a 50 year view on the chai market and decided to take a technology first approach to build a chai brand."

He also added that the latest capital raise will help the company deepen their technology investments to further enhance the guest experience. They will continue to grow their cafe footprint and go deeper into the existing cities and explore new markets while continuously looking to hire talent to achieve their skating targets.