Gurgaon-based Radiohead Brands, makers of Jimmy’s, a known name in the mixers space, has announced its expansion into a multi-beverage company, broadening its cocktails and sparkling mixers. As part of this expansion, the four-year-old company has introduced the Hustle energy drink.
To fund this expansion, Radiohead also announced its recent fundraising, an extension of its earlier Pre-Series A round. The company’s valuation grew 3x over the last year and 20x over the last three years since it started its operations. The round was led by Prath Ventures, which also saw the participation of prominent angels such as Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm and Neel Bahl. Existing investors are Keki Mistry (HDFC), Vishesh Khurana (Shiprocket), 7Square Ventures, Vidur Talwar (T&T Motors) and Anirudh Somani (CLSA). The company raised ₹14 crores last year in March in an investment round led by Roots Ventures.
Founded by Ankur Bhatia and Nitin Bhardwaj in 2019, its first brand Jimmy’s claims to have moved ahead of all other start-ups competing in the same space, having served over 12 million drinks in FY 23. It now plans to use its deep category experience, already established route to market, and unique ability to build brands fast and frugally to dominate the premium energy drinks segment.
Speaking about the fundraise, Ankur Bhatia, founder, and CEO of Radiohead Brands, said, “Almost all categories in India have seen consumers’ willingness to upgrade to better quality products and pay a premium for it, be it in technology, real estate, fashion, automobiles or spirits. Packaged beverage as a category, however, is stuck at the lower end of the price segment which is unique to the Indian sub-continent. We are disrupting this and building a multi-beverage brands company at the premium end with better quality products built on the back of sharp positioning and clutter-breaking packaging.”
The company plans to enter several new categories in open white spaces still untapped by the beverage majors over the next few years and has an ambition to reach ₹100-crore revenue run-rate by next year to build a ₹1000 crore revenue company within the decade.
Speaking about its plans, Nitin Bhardwaj, co-founder, and COO of Radiohead Brands, said, “We have a ready platform to launch Hustle with route to market already built on the back of Jimmy’s. We see immense potential in the Energy Drinks segment, with our sharp brand positioning and teams with deep category experience, we are confident we will fast be a dominant player in this category as well.”
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Naresh Khanna – 10 February 2025
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