Fast Coffee raises $1m as investment in India’s coffee shop market picks up

Fast Coffee’s flagship store in Bangalore | Photo credit: Fast Coffee

Indian coffee start-up Fast Coffee has raised $1m in a seed funding round led by venture capital firm Bloom International Ventures. 
 

Launched in 2018 to supply Horeca businesses with sustainably sourced India-grown coffee, Fast Coffee opened its first flagship store in Bangalore in December 2024.  

In a press release, Fast Coffee outlined plans to open four further stores in the southern Indian city in the first quarter of 2025 and reach 10 stores by the end of next year – including a first site outside of Bangalore. 

Targeting store-level profitability from the outset, Fast Coffee is planning an interim bridge of Series A funding round in the second half of 2025 to support further outlet growth. 

Fast Coffee, which stands for Fair and Sustainable Trade, is owned by Bangalore-based HumbleBean, a specialty coffee roaster, training academy and café concept founded by Soomanna Mandepanda and Puja Soomanna. The business states its mission as ‘making responsible coffee accessible to everyone’, with a focus on fostering connections between consumers and Indian coffee farmers. 

“Every time you sip on your favorite brew, you’re taking part in a web of human connections that delivered that cup of coffee into your hands. We love coffee, our planet, the beautiful people who grow our beans, and the folks who brew it. With Fast Coffee, we want to make coffee that’s not just good to drink, but good for the earth and it’s about closing the value chain gap and supporting Indian coffee-growing communities in a sustainable, fair, and transparent way,” said Mandepanda.  

Investment in Indian coffee businesses has accelerated in 2024, with both established and smaller operators raising new funds to grow their share in the country’s burgeoning coffee shop market. 

Specialty coffee groups Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters and Subko Coffee Roasters raised $35m and $10m respectively to scale their operations, while small-format chain abCoffee and specialty coffee start-up First Coffee raised $3.4m and $1.2m to accelerate the roll-out of their on-the-go focused store networks. 

Additionally, Jaipur-based Nothing Before Coffee (NBC) is seeking to raise $4m to accelerate outlet expansion in India and abroad. The value-focused chain currently operates 75 stores in India alongside a single international site in Portugal and has plans to reach 400 stores by 2026.