Hector Beverages has raised $50 million in a fresh funding round led by Lathe Investment Pte. The Mumbai-based company owns the Paper Boat beverage and packaged food brand. 

The beverages company will utilise the capital to fund capital expenditure, business expansion and general fiscal requirements, the company said in the Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings. 

While reporting about the deal last week, Mint stated that while Hector Beverages was working at a $50 million primary fundraise, a secondary stake sale of another $20 million was also in the offing. 

The beverage-focused organisation issued 50,27,273 Class D Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS) at INR 795.66 each to Lathe Investment Pte Ltd, giving it per cent equity in Hector Beverages. The latter is a group of investment holding companies managed by Singapore-based GIC Special Investments.  

Last week, the FMCG brand also issued bonus Class B equity shares to existing investors. These include A91 Emerging Fund and Sofina Ventures, which participated in the company’s equity fundraising round in 2019, when it raised $3.7 million.

Former Coca-Cola executives Neeraj Kumar Kakkar and Neeraj Biyani founded Hector Beverages in 2009 and diversified into Indian snacks 11 years later. The company managed to capture the attention of consumers by packaging traditional food and beverages, like Aam Panna, Aam Ras, Panakam and Thandai, in contemporary packaging. 

However, like other beverage makers, the brand was dealt a heavy blow by the pandemic when its mainstay, offline retail distribution, underwent a rough patch due to the prolonged lockdowns. It recorded INR 243 crore in operating revenue in FY21, with a 37 per cent reduction in its losses to INR 63.7 crore during 2020-21 fiscal.