B9 Beverages, which manufactures and sells popular craft beer brand Bira 91, is believed to have closed a $10 million debt financing round, while also hitting the road to raise $50-$75 million in fresh equity financing.

Alternative financing firm Anicut Capital has given credit financing to the Delhi-based company, which also entered the mass beermarket through the launch of its Boom brand in April, according to two sources with knowledge of the developments.

This also comes on the heels of B9 Beverages closing $4.3 million in bridge financing from consumer-focused venture capital firm Sixth Sense Ventures last month. Anicut Capital is an existing investor in Bira.

Anicut Capital founders Ashvin Chadha and IAS Balamurugan did not respond to an email till press time. Additionally, Ankur Jain, founder and chief executive of B9 Beverages, declined to comment about “speculation on fundraising activity.”

The company is in the process of raising $50-$75 million in fresh financing, and has mandated global investment bank Credit Suisse to scout for investors, sources also told ET. The anticipated funding round, which is believed to be at an early stage, could also have secondary components.

Talks with a couple of US-based consumer-focused funds are believed to have been initiated. ET was, however, unable to ascertain the names of the funds, or the valuation that the company is seeking at this point.

Bira, which counts Sequoia Capital, Sofina and TR Capital among its major institutional backers, was valued at about $246 million after the closure of its Sixth Sense Ventures-led bridge financing round.

According to Crunchbase, Bira has raised about $83.4 million in funding across multiple rounds. The company, which also counts a number of notable angel investors on its cap table, is expected to use the proceeds to ramp up its production capacity to about 1.7 million cases, up from its current 400,000 cases, sources told ET, with a significant amount also to go towards brand building.

The fundraising also comes at a time when Bira has locked in a five-year global partnership with International Cricket Council, the global governing body of the sport. With the ongoing cricket World Cup, sales of alco-beverages in the country are expected to skyrocket.

Last month, the company launched its Bira Boom brand - a mass market offering - that will see it square off against global majors, such as Carlsberg and United Breweries Kingfisher.

Boom will have two variants - Classic and Super Strong - and will be available in 330ml, 650ml bottles, and 500ml cans. It will be available across key markets like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, with the 650ml unit priced between Rs 130 and Rs 160 in their respective markets.

Since its launch about four years ago, Bira has managed about a 5% share in key markets despite the dominance of Kingfisher, AB Inbev’s Corona and Budweiser, and Carlsberg, which together control 80%.

The beer segment expanded 6% to 2771.5 million litres in 2018, according to GlobalData forecast. But India still favours strong beerbrands that have an 80% share, and global companies have been producing stronger variants of their flagship beer brands.

For FY 2018, on a consolidated basis, the company reported total revenue of Rs 160.69 crore, a five-fold increase from the previous fiscal, while its loss widened to Rs 101.79 crore, up almost 85%, compared to the previous fiscal.

In a chat with ET in February, founder Jain said that the company was aiming to be profitable by 2021.