[Funding alert] D2C millennial cigarette brand Hash raises $3.5M in angel round

Hash, a D2C millennial cigarette brand, on Friday announced that it has raised close to $3.5 million (Rs 25 crore) in a recently concluded angel round. 

The round, that was led by Amrac Investment Trust, also saw participation by angels - Kunal Shah (Founder, Cred, ex-Freecharge), Jitendra Gupta (Founder and CEO,  Jupiter), Ashneer Grover (Co-founder and Managing Director, BharatPe), Ankur Jain (Founder and CEO, Bira91), Anshoo Sharma (Co-founder and CEO, MagicPin) and Suhail  Sameer (Chief Executive Officer, BharatPe). 

Founded by Shwetank Jain, Hash is said it is committed to empower the unorganised small retailers and paanwalas in the country through mobile-first tech products. 

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Headquartered in Delhi-NCR, Hash claims to be building technology-immersed products that will not only help digitise the businesses of paanwalas and small shop owners, but also build an efficient supply chain and enable credit access to this segment. 

Shwetank Jain, Founder, Hash, said, “Tobacco industry has a set of traditional players and aged brands. There is a large addressable market for freshly envisioned products targeted at millennials and distributed efficiently using technology. "There is also an urgent need to equip the millions of unorganised sellers and paanwalas with the latest technology solutions, so as to aid in their business growth and efficiency. With Hash, we are committed to empower this category of small shop-owners and paanwalas,” he added.

Shwetank holds a masters in Management from UCLA University, and has previously built a Rs 100 crore turnover home textile brand Tapisserie in three years. The Hash team also includes professionals from the tobacco and FMCG industry including Jaskaran Singh Khurana, ex-Managing Director for Golden Tobacco Limited.

“Hash has the potential to do to tobacco what BIRA did to the alcobev industry. The interesting challenge is not only to introduce millennial first products, but at the same time change the way the product is distributed to lakhs of paanwaalas by disrupting the supply chain using technology," added Kapil Chugh, Fund Promoter, Amrac Investment Trust.

Hash aims to build a team of 500+ professionals across levels, including feet on street sales force by the end of the current financial year.