Nalini Parthiban, the CEO of Sweet Karam Coffee, has expressed her company's current strategic focus on elevating the company Coffee into a prominent FMCG brand with a global presence, particularly in South India.

The well-known South Indian snack brand, Sweet Karam Coffee, based in Chennai, has recently secured $1.5 million in funding from Fireside Ventures. These funds will be allocated towards expanding their offline presence, exploring new markets, and fortifying their product range.

"In terms of deployment of funds, we are planning to pull three key levers. First is channel expansion. Currently, we are online heavy and we want to take the same traction to offline. So retail is going to be a universe that we will submerge into.

Second, in terms of product expansion, we have an assortment of Tamil Nadu and Kerala delicacies right now, but we want to expand this across Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Third, in terms of team building, we are looking at building our capabilities in-house. We are currently a 30-member team and plan to build capabilities in branding, marketing as well as in our R&D processes," Parthiban stated in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

Established in 2015 as a small kitchen operation with an initial investment of only Rs 2000, Sweet Karam Coffee has evolved into a million-dollar enterprise.

Nalini Parthiban emphasised their growth over the past few years, stating that they now handle approximately 10,000-12,000 monthly orders, primarily through their website and app.

With an average order value close to ₹1,000, they have been experiencing a 30% month-on-month growth in both orders and revenue. Their current annual revenue ranges from ₹15-20 crore, reflecting robust unit economics.

Watch the accompanying video for the entire conversation.