Beverage brand Bored Beverages has raised over Rs 2.5 Cr in a Seed Round led by Inflection Point Ventures, along with private investors Bhawana Bhatnagar, founder - WeFounder Circle, Soumya Kant, founder - Clovia, and from the Dot In Network. Prabhtej Singh Bhatia, founder of Simba Beer will be joining in the journey of building Bored Beverages as a strategic investor and mentor. The funds raised will be utilized towards the expansion of the team and scaling of sales and marketing operations and will also be used towards establishing a well-set distribution channel and building the brand in the market.

Bored Beverages is building a cross-category portfolio of alcoholic beverages for the Millennials and Gen-Z by bringing out newer brands with various flavors and different alcohol percentages, using various traditional and non-traditional ingredients. Their first product in the market – No Label is a mead, which is an alternate alcohol made from fermenting Honey. No Label is intended for early alcohol consumers due to its ease of drinkability and lightness. The Brand aims to disrupt the Indian alco-bev market by using its early mover advantage, unique product, well-established standard production operations, and quality control procedures.

Mitesh Shah, co-founder, Inflection Point Ventures, says, “India as an alcohol consumption market has been steadily on a rise. The young population — Gen-Z, and Millennials – want to explore and expect unique combinations to be served. We believe Bored Beverages has understood this need of the market and is ready to roll out a range of beverages, which suits the palates and makes the experience pleasant and worthy. Going forward, we expect alternate alcoholic beverages to be a fast-growing segment and Bored Beverage has the right concoction to serve unique drinks to its target customers.”

As per industry reports, by 2030, 50% of consumers are expected to buy more of the same category of alcoholic beverages that they were consuming, 26% are estimated to move to higher brands, and 24% are expected to spend on newer categories of alcoholic beverages. Bored Beverage falls in the new category.

Bored Beverages was incorporated by two childhood friends. with a combined professional experience of more than eight years, Vinayak Malhotra (managing Sales & Marketing, Finance & Strategy) and Anant Gupta (managing Production, Product Innovation & Brand Marketing), founded Bored Beverages in 2020. Currently, the first product in the portfolio of the Company – No Label Mead Original is available in four cities: Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, and Pune. The Brand plans to position itself in the Ready-to-Drink alcohol market on the back of its distinctive marketing strategy, effective on-market trade techniques, and an inventive product pipeline.

Vinayak Malhotra, co-founder of Bored Beverages says, “The seed funding is going to play a pivotal role in achieving the vision for Bored Beverages which is to break the monotony of traditional alcohol in the Indian market. With No Label Mead as our first product towards building a cross-category portfolio company, we plan to bring to the market new alcohol and new flavours for consumers to experience. IPV recognized our play in the Alco-Bev sector and we’re glad that they have partnered with us.”

The global mead market is growing rapidly at a CAGR of 18.7% to touch $1621 million by 2028. The global ready-to-drink market is growing at higher rates than spirits, wine, and beer, signaling a major shift in consumer interest in this category across all demographics. Robust demand for flavored alcoholic beverages and the adoption of low alcohol content beverages are predicted to fuel the ready-to-drink alcohol industry and outperform the wider beverage alcohol. The US is the fastest growing and trending category.

India is one of the fastest growing alcoholic beverages markets globally, with an estimated market size of USD 52.5 billion in 2020 and the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.8 percent between 2020 and 2023.