This story revolves around a man who revolutionized India’s tea sector by building the first global tea brand. At the mere age of six, he started a lending service among friends where kids exchanged candy for comic books.
He founded an online tea selling business in 2012. In less than three years, the company has shipped over 30mn cups of tea to customers in over 80 countries with an annual turnover of multi-million dollar.
We are talking about Kaushal Dugar, a 31-year-old serial entrepreneur who left his high-paying job at Singapore and came back to his hometown to tap a potable opportunity of majority’s favorite drink – tea.
Born and brought up in a small town of North-East part of India, Kaushal graduated with a Bachelor’s of Business Management from the Singapore Management University. After spending years in Singapore as a financial analyst, he returned home hellbent on bringing a Silicon Valley-attitude to the Darjeeling tea fields.
I came back to Siliguri and decided to work for my older brother who runs a tea export business. To my surprise, the infrastructure which was used to take tea from gardens to the consumer was extremely outdated. And in these challenges, I saw a great opportunity for a change — Kaushal Dugar
In 2012, he founded Teabox, a premium tea brand that delivers tea directly from its origin to the customer. His idea of bringing the India’s tea sector into the modern era through online platform proved to be revolutionary. Within a few months of its launch, he had successfully attracted Silicon Valley’s biggest venture capital firm Accel Partners and raised over $7mn.
On a mission to build Teabox as India’s first global tea brand, his company uses technology and innovative supply chain to ensure that its global customer base can access fresh and best teas within days of production. Company sources teas directly from plantations in Darjeeling, Assam and the Nilgiris.
It vacuum packs the leaves within 48 hours of production and ships directly from the processing warehouses to customers in more than 80 countries within three to five days.
Kaushal’s impressive idea did not just attract big investors but also several of his customers also started to invest in the idea. His business model is ‘freshest’ like his tea and has never been attempted before in a country which is world’s second-largest tea grower in the world.
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