Sweet Karam Coffee, a South Indian snacking brand, has secured $1.5 million (Rs 12.5 crore) in funding from Fireside Ventures, an early-stage consumer-focused venture capital fund.

As per the Chennai-based snacking brand, the freshly raised funds will be used for offline expansion, penetrating across new markets and strengthening its product portfolio. 

Sweet Karam Coffee | Reviving Traditional South Indian Delicacies

Founded by Anand Bharadwaj, Nalini Parthiban, Srivatsan Sundararaman, and Veera Raghavan in 2020, Sweet Karam Coffee is a Chennai-based D2C snacking brand that serves 100+ South Indian Sweets and snacks free from palm oil and preservatives. Further, it offers filter coffee and ready-meal mixes.

As per the startup, it is reviving traditional South Indian & sustainable millet-based delicacies with a blend of culture & home-food experience.

Speaking about the development, Nalini Parthiban, co-founder of Sweet Karam Coffee, highlighted his excitement to partner and work with Fireside Ventures.

Parthiban said, 

“With Fireside’s portfolio of building direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, we are excited to partner and work together with them to make Sweet Karam Coffee a global South Indian FMCG snacking brand.”

Aiming to promote South Indian delicacies, the D2C snacking brand addresses the problem of poor availability and accessibility of well-packaged traditional sweets and snacks and offers a range of snacks from Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It plans to expand its product portfolio of Karnataka and Andhra snacks. 

The Chennai-based snacking brand offers nationwide delivery within the country and extends its services to 32 countries, underscoring the global appeal of South Indian culinary traditions. It has partnered with an ecosystem of farmers in Tamil Nadu, bringing a range of millet-based delicacies direct from the farm.

Claiming to be doubling its revenue year-on-year since its inception in 2020, the Chennai-based snacking brand competes with D2C snacking brands like Chaayos, TagZ, and id Fresh Food, among others.

Growth of D2C Snacking brands

With the rise in disposable incomes in the country and the increase in internet penetration, there has been a rise in the number of D2C snacking brands in the country over the past few years.

Last month, Madmix, a ready-to-eat snacks brand, raised a pre-seed funding round led by Prime Securities to increase its marketing efforts, sales team expansion, and future product development. In July, Beyond Snack, a Kerala-based banana chips brand, bagged $3.5 million in pre-series A funding to expand and enhance its distribution network and supply chain.

In May, popped chips maker and premium GenZ snack brand TagZ bagged $2 million in a Pre-Series A funding round to accelerate the growth of the company, enter new markets, and more.

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