Drunken Monkey to expand in Telangana, AP
Hyderabad: City-based startup Drunken Monkey plans to expand its Smoothie Bar franchise chain to 150 from the present 50 outlets in 12 cities by March 2019 in addition to expanding the footprint to overseas markets as well.
The startup is keen on tier-2 cities in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and has decided to open 12 franchised stores in these two Telugu states, taking the total count to 24. To support its expansion plan, Drunken Monkey will increase its headcount from 500 to 1,000 by the end of 2018. With the expansion plan in place, the startup expects Rs75crore for the current fiscal as against the Rs25cr in 2017-18 fiscal.
Samrat Reddy, Founder of Drunken Monkey, said: “With an untapped smoothie market, we believe to have the potential to grow to 150 bars in the next one year in India. We will be opening our stores shortly in Belgium, Canada, US and UK, while we’re also considering the Australia, Singapore and Vietnam market. An initial investment of nearly Rs20 crore will be required for each country.”
Considering the stiff competition abroad, Drunken Monkey had earlier put its expansion plan on hold. However, it’s reworking on expansion plan by customising its product range as per the specific requirements of overseas consumers and availability of raw material.
The startup invested Rs four crore in R&D over the past one year and launched its first store at Madhapur here in February 2016. “In the first year of our launch, we opened four stores and it reached 50 in February 2018 as we launched 46 new stores in the last financial year. We had to take our expansion very extensively as our idea couldn’t be patented and we wanted to mark our presence in different cities before someone else would copy us,” adds Reddy.
“Including initial investment of Rs five crore, the total investment reached to Rs10 crore. We mobilise funds through franchising model and the same will be invested in the expansion. Business is doing good at tier-2 cities on par with tier-1 cities,” he said.