Harajuku Tokyo Cafe | $3M (~₹28 Cr Pre-Series A)

Harajuku Tokyo Cafe, a Japanese-themed dining chain from Delhi, has raised $3 million (about ₹28 crore) in a Pre-Series A round led by ZeroW. The company plans to open 10 outlets and set up central kitchens in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

The round

Harajuku Tokyo Cafe raised $3 million (about ₹28 crore) in a Pre-Series A round led by ZeroW, Inc42 reports. Existing investors Indian Angel Network and Samved VC also participated. New investors include Blume Founders Fund, the Brijesh Parekh Family Office and Rahul Jain, co-founder of Epigamia. The company has not disclosed a valuation.

It will use the funds to open 10 outlets across Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chandigarh over the next two quarters, and to bring central kitchens in Mumbai and Bengaluru into operation by December 2026.

The company says that since the seed round it has doubled both its outlet count and its revenue. It aims to reach ₹100 crore in revenue this financial year.

What Harajuku Tokyo Cafe does

Founded in 2021 by Gaurav Kanwar, a London School of Economics alumnus, the company operates two brands: Harajuku Tokyo Cafe, a casual dine-in chain, and Harajuku Bakehouse, a quick-service bakery format. Its outlets are in Delhi NCR and Mumbai. Bakehouse accounts for roughly a third of revenue, Inc42 says, and the company claims it sold more than 1,000 loaves a week on Blinkit in Delhi NCR.

Kanwar said the company has focused on infrastructure for the next phase of growth:

The central kitchens are due by December 2026 and are meant to support the expansion in those cities.

The investors

ZeroW led the round. Indian Angel Network and Samved VC invested earlier and followed on, while Blume Founders Fund joined as a new backer. Rahul Jain's participation brings an operator from the packaged-food category, as Epigamia is a food brand. Available reports do not describe the investors' thesis, so none is attributed here.

Why it matters

Citing the Swiggy-Kearney "How India Eats 2025" report, Inc42 says India's food services market is projected to grow from $78 billion in 2025 to $120 billion to $125 billion by 2030, with the organised segment growing about twice as fast as the unorganised one. Harajuku is trying to scale a themed concept from a handful of outlets to multiple cities, which depends on kitchen and supply-chain discipline as much as on demand. Related coverage: FoodTech funding news and D2C funding news.