Chaayos is a modern Indian tea café chain founded in November 2012 by IIT graduates Nitin Saluja and Raghav Verma, with its first outlet opening in DLF Cyber City, Gurugram Chaayos+15LinkedIn+15LinkedIn+15. The brand aims to reimagine India’s tea culture through its tagline “Meri Wali Chai”, allowing patrons to customize their chai from 25 base teas and 12,000+ variants using add-ons like adrak, elaichi, cinnamon, and more Vizologi+6Marketing Monk+6LinkedIn+6.
Chaayos has grown rapidly across India, with over 200 outlets in major metros and tier‑1 towns as of 2025 Chaayos+14LinkedIn+14Marketing Monk+14. Its business model follows a café-retail hybrid structure, generating revenue through dine-in, takeaway, flavour-packed bottled chai blends, and kiosk-based operations inside IT parks and malls Chaayos+10StartupTalky+10StartupTalky+10.
The chain positions itself at the intersection of tradition and innovation—serving familiar home-style chai in a chic, hygienic café environment, with design touches like recycled-cup lamps and curated ambiance enhancing the experience LeadIQ+12StartupTalky+12LinkedIn+12. Their operations utilize centralized kitchens and robust tech platforms to ensure consistency across locations, minimize wastage, and maintain quality standards across outlets nationwide LinkedIn.
Chaayos has attracted significant investor support, including a $5 million investment led by Tiger Global in 2015, and was valued at ~$240 million as of FY 2023, generating approximately ₹239 crore in revenues—a nearly 330% growth from ₹55 crore in FY 2021 LinkedIn. As of FY 2024‑25, the brand is considered the highest-grossing organized tea café chain in India, controlling over 50% of the domestic tea café market alongside Chai Point Kouzina Food Tech+4theindiawatch.com+4Yo! Success+4.
🎯 Relevance to Gurugram & Civic Alignment
Chaayos began in Gurugram and has a significant presence in workplace hubs, malls, and neighbourhood business zones, making it easily accessible for civic collaborations and outreach initiatives.
Its brand values of quality, hygiene, and personalization resonate with community-driven campaigns such as digital literacy, urban wellness, and micro-market awareness events.
Chaayos café spaces can serve as activation venues for civic partners—hosting talk sessions, awareness kiosks, or CSR pop-ups in high-footfall zones like mall food courts and coworking hubs.
🏆 Why Chaayos Matters as a Civic Partner
Community Access: Easily accessible, neighborhood-centered cafés that attract working professionals, students, and urban citizens—ideal touchpoints for citizen awareness.
Youth & Lifestyle Appeal: Its tech-driven customization and youth-centric branding make it an attractive platform for modern campaign engagement.
Flexible Activation: Café areas and kiosks can be used for pop-up exhibits, health checks, financial literacy demos, or survey drives with minimal logistical demands.
Purposeable Partnerships: Potential alignment with sustainability themes (e.g., compostable kulhads, waste-aware packaging), digital local marketing, and CSR messaging.