In March 2022, Diageo India paid ₹31.5 crore for 22.5% of Nao Spirits, arithmetic that valued the whole company at roughly ₹140 crore. In June 2025, after the company had tripled its gross turnover and sold a million bottles of gin in a single year, the same buyer took control at an enterprise value of ₹130 crore. Growth, in other words, did not make Nao Spirits more expensive. It made it available.
That is the puzzle at the centre of India’s first craft gin company. Greater Than and Hapusa did what no Indian spirit had done before: they made a Goan shed with a Hungarian copper still a name that bartenders in London and Singapore recognised. Yet the audited numbers behind the brand show a business whose net sales grew far slower than its headlines, whose losses doubled in the year before the sale, and which ended FY25 with ₹1.13 crore of cash in the bank. This is the story of how a bar in Delhi became a Diageo subsidiary, and what the price tag says about craft alcohol in India.
Quick facts
| Company | Nao Spirits & Beverages Private Limited (CIN U15100DL2010PTC197532), Goa distillery, Delhi-registered |
| Founded | Incorporated 1 January 2010; business started 2016–17; Greater Than launched September 2017 |
| Founders | Anand Virmani (CEO), Vaibhav Singh, Aparajita Ninan; Abhinav Rajput joined as COO in 2019 and was named co-founder in August 2021 |
| Businesses | Craft gin (Greater Than, Hapusa, limited editions) and aged spiced rum (Pipa), sold in India and exported |
| Latest FY revenue | FY25 gross revenue ₹60.46 crore, down 25.6% from ₹81.26 crore in FY24 (Entrackr, from filings) |
| Latest FY profit/loss | FY25 net loss ₹30.25 crore, roughly double the ₹14.6 crore loss of FY24 (Entrackr) |
| Listed | Private; a subsidiary of United Spirits Limited (Diageo India, NSE: UNITDSPR, BSE: 532432) since June 2025 |
| Market value / last valuation | Enterprise value of ₹130 crore in the June 2025 Diageo India control deal (USL exchange filing) |
| Key shareholders | United Spirits held about 97.07% after the first tranche closed (June 2025), with the final 3% due by 30 June 2026; Anand Virmani continues as CEO |
What they do
Nao Spirits makes small-batch spirits in Goa and sells them to India’s urban drinkers, bars and, in a small way, to importers abroad. Its core product is Greater Than, a London Dry gin built on nine botanicals and priced to be poured by the glass: the state-set MRP in Goa is ₹900 for a 750 ml bottle, and Delhi retail runs ₹1,100 to ₹1,200 (Livcheers and Unsobered price listings, 2026). Above it sits Hapusa, a sipping gin made with foraged Himalayan juniper, turmeric, raw mango and gondhoraj lime, at ₹2,120 in Goa. Around these two the company releases limited editions under the Greater Than name, and in January 2024 it added Pipa, a jaggery-spirit rum aged for a year in imported casks. The customer, as co-founder Anand Virmani has said repeatedly, was originally the bartender who had no Indian gin to work with; the drinker followed.
The origin
The company’s paperwork is older than its idea. Nao Spirits & Beverages Private Limited was incorporated in Delhi on 1 January 2010, according to the Regulation 30 disclosure United Spirits filed with the exchanges on 19 June 2025. The gin business only began in 2015, when Anand Virmani and Vaibhav Singh opened Perch, a wine and coffee bar in New Delhi, and found they could not stock a single Indian gin worth mixing. Virmani had spent three years at William Grant & Sons on Glenfiddich and then run marketing for Rémy Cointreau across the subcontinent; he holds a business degree from Babson College and a master’s in wine business from the Burgundy School of Business, as YourStory reported in October 2020. Singh brought the bar trade. Aparajita Ninan, a graphic designer who had worked with Sesame Street India and Penguin, designed the brand and became the third co-founder.
The insight was simple and, at the time, unfashionable. India grows the herbs and spices the rest of the world’s gins are built on, yet the category in India was 1% of a market that was 97% brown spirits. Kulpreet Sahni, the majority investor in Perch, watched gin orders climb at the bar and put in the first ₹20 lakh in early 2015, as Forbes India reported in December 2022. What the founders could not find was anyone to make the liquid. Established distilleries wanted volume, not a few hundred litres of an experiment, so the pair decided to distil themselves. They bought a 1,000-litre copper pot still from Hungary, named it Agotha, and set it up in what the team still calls a tiny shed inside a larger bottling plant in Goa. The state was chosen deliberately: Virmani told YourStory it was “one of the friendlier states with an approachable excise office as well as a fantastic test market”. Greater Than went on sale in September 2017. Hapusa, the first gin to use Himalayan juniper, followed in July 2018.
The struggle years
The first year was close to invisible. Greater Than sold 7,836 bottles in its first twelve months, a figure YourStory reported in 2024 and one that the company has never dressed up. A distillery owner had told the founders that “craft gin has no place in the Indian universe”, and a prospective funder, asked to back the idea, replied that only Aladdin had a genie, according to Forbes India. Virmani’s own description of the Indian spirits trade in an August 2018 interview with Gin Foundry was blunt: confusing, inconsistent and massive, and built for beer and whisky. The company had grown from two people to eight by then.
Money was the second problem. As late as October 2020 the company described itself to YourStory as bootstrapped with friends-and-family capital and said it was looking for funds to expand. The team was 26 people in India and two in a UK subsidiary office. Growth was real but from a tiny base: 72,000 bottles and about $450,000 of turnover in 2018-19, then 260,000 bottles and about $1.2 million in 2019-20, according to figures the company gave Business India in August 2021. A $2 million Series A closed in January 2021 from existing investors, family offices and a boutique venture fund, taking total funding to a company-stated $5 million since inception. In rupee terms the business was small: Forbes India put net revenue at ₹14.5 crore in FY21 and ₹22 crore in FY22.
The third problem never went away, and it is the one the audited numbers show most clearly. Alcohol in India is regulated state by state, with separate label registrations, excise structures and route-to-market rules in each. Greater Than was in eight cities and 14 export countries by early 2021, but every new state was a fresh negotiation. Then came the reversal. After a FY24 in which gross revenue more than doubled, FY25 gross revenue fell 25.6% to ₹60.46 crore and the net loss doubled to ₹30.25 crore, Entrackr reported from the company’s filings in December 2025. Current assets shrank from ₹48.7 crore to ₹23.7 crore in a year. Cash and bank balances at 31 March 2025 were ₹1.13 crore. Entrackr attributed the slump to what it called the volatile nature of the Indian market: shifting consumer preferences, state-level regulatory changes and a crowd of new craft gin entrants. Whatever the mix of causes, a company losing ₹30 crore a year with ₹1 crore in the bank was not going to reach FY26 on its own.
The turning point
The turning point had two acts, three years apart, and the same actor. On 12 March 2022, United Spirits Limited, the listed Indian arm of Diageo, announced it would buy a 22.5% minority stake in Nao Spirits for ₹31.5 crore, funded from internal cash, with a call option to buy the rest on pre-agreed principles, as Business Today reported. It was the first time a multinational had invested in a homegrown Indian spirits start-up, and Diageo India’s then chief executive Hina Nagarajan described it as the company’s first move in India to support bold entrepreneurs. At that price the whole company was worth about ₹140 crore. On one side of the deal sat a start-up with roughly ₹22 crore of net revenue; on the other, a parent with 35 factories and Tanqueray in its portfolio.
The second act came on 19 June 2025. USL’s board approved buying 37,683 equity shares from existing shareholders for about ₹53.80 crore and subscribing to 31,820 new equity shares plus 27,577 compulsorily convertible preference shares for about ₹56 crore, at an enterprise value the press release put at ₹130 crore (Diageo quoted $15.2 million at the time; at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 per Trading Economics it is about $13.5 million). By then USL already held 30% on a fully diluted basis. The first tranche and the fresh subscription were to close by 27 June 2025, taking USL to about 97.07%; the last 3,392 shares, about 3%, held by one shareholder, were to follow by 30 June 2026. The board also authorised up to ₹20 crore more for working capital. Set against the FY25 balance sheet, the ₹56 crore of primary money was not a growth cheque. It was the difference between a brand and a liquidation.
The money behind it
Nao Spirits was never a venture-capital darling. Its funding was small, patient and mostly from people who drank the product. The documented shape:
- Early 2015: ₹20 lakh from Kulpreet Sahni, the majority investor in the Perch bar, to start development (Forbes India, December 2022).
- 2016 to 2020: friends-and-family capital; the company described itself as bootstrapped in October 2020 (YourStory).
- January 2021: $2 million Series A from existing investors, family offices and a boutique venture fund; company-stated total raised of $5 million since inception (Indian Retailer, January 2021; Business India, August 2021).
- March 2022: ₹31.5 crore from United Spirits for 22.5%, with a call option on the rest (Business Today; Diageo India). Entrackr’s later tally of all pre-acquisition funding was about ₹54 crore across five rounds.
- June 2025: ₹53.80 crore secondary purchase plus ₹56 crore primary subscription by United Spirits at ₹130 crore enterprise value; USL’s stake moves from 30% to about 97.07%, then 100% (USL Regulation 30 filing, 19 June 2025).
What each backer changed is fairly clear. Sahni’s money turned a bar-room complaint into a product. The 2021 round paid for state expansion and marketing during the pandemic. Diageo’s 2022 stake, made through its Diageo India Ventures arm alongside bets on Maya Pistola, V9 Beverages and Indie Brews & Spirits, brought what Virmani called mentorship and the ability to lean on the giant in certain markets, while the founders kept creative control. The 2025 deal changed the relationship entirely. Virmani told The Spirits Business in January 2026 that Diageo had shifted from a hands-off financial investor to an operational partner: access to the distribution network, better credit terms with suppliers, better distributor deals and market intelligence. The step-up in USL’s holding from 22.5% to 30% between 2022 and 2025 is referenced in the filing as earlier disclosures but not separately explained in the documents we opened.
How it makes money
The business model is a premium spirits model with an Indian complication. Money comes in three ways:
- Core gin sales in India: Greater Than at roughly ₹900 to ₹1,200 a bottle and Hapusa at ₹2,120 in Goa (state MRPs, 2026). Greater Than was about 80% of sales and Hapusa 20% in 2021, as per the company.
- Limited editions under the Greater Than name, which keep the brand in bartenders’ conversations: Juniper Bomb (2021), No Sleep coffee gin with Sleepy Owl (January 2022), Broken Bat aged on Kashmir willow from cricket bats (November 2022) and Punk, a strawberry-and-hibiscus pink gin (2024).
- Exports, which were ₹2 crore of earnings in FY24 and ₹1.13 crore in FY25 (Entrackr), across a footprint the company now puts at 24 countries.
Money goes out in four big lines, and here is the part most people get wrong. In FY24 the single largest cost was excise duty at ₹43 crore, 48% of total costs and seven times the ₹6 crore of FY23 (Entrackr). Excise is collected from the consumer and passed to state governments, but under Indian accounting it flows through the company’s gross revenue. That is why FY24 headline revenue jumped 145% while audited net sales, the number USL disclosed, rose only 29%, from ₹27.01 crore to ₹34.83 crore. The other lines are procurement of spirit, botanicals, glass and packaging (₹17 crore in FY24, ₹14.91 crore in FY25), advertising and promotion (₹17 crore in FY24, ₹13.42 crore in FY25) and staff (₹8 crore in FY24, ₹10.73 crore in FY25). The margin, when it exists, sits between the net sales line and the sum of procurement and marketing; at Nao’s scale it has not existed. Entrackr calculated an EBITDA margin of minus 13.6% in FY24 and minus 38.1% in FY25, and ₹1.52 of spending for every rupee of revenue in FY25. Production, at least, is not the constraint: Virmani told The Spirits Business the Goa site makes about 100,000 nine-litre cases a year against a capacity of around 220,000.
The numbers
Two sets of figures exist for Nao Spirits, and they do not agree because they measure different things. United Spirits’ exchange filing quotes turnover gross of excise and net sales from the standalone audited accounts. Entrackr’s reporting quotes total gross revenue from the same filings, which comes out slightly higher in FY24 (₹81.26 crore against ₹77.73 crore), most likely because it includes other income. Both are shown below.
| Financial year | Turnover gross of excise (₹ crore, USL filing) | Net sales (₹ crore, USL filing) | Gross revenue (₹ crore, Entrackr) | Net loss (₹ crore, Entrackr) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY22 | 24.91 | 20.65 | not reported | not reported |
| FY23 | 33.09 | 27.01 | 33 | 16.4 |
| FY24 | 77.73 | 34.83 | 81.26 | 14.6 |
| FY25 | not disclosed | not disclosed | 60.46 | 30.25 |
- Net worth at 31 March 2024: ₹18.21 crore (USL filing).
- Excise duty: ₹6 crore in FY23, ₹43 crore in FY24, ₹33 crore in FY25 (Entrackr). Stripping FY25 excise out of FY25 gross revenue leaves roughly ₹27 crore, our arithmetic, which would put net sales back below the FY23 level.
- Total costs: ₹50 crore in FY23, ₹96 crore in FY24, ₹92 crore in FY25 (Entrackr).
- Return on capital employed: minus 55% in FY24 (Entrackr).
- Cash and bank at 31 March 2025: ₹1.13 crore; current assets ₹23.7 crore, down from ₹48.7 crore a year earlier (Entrackr).
- Volume: one million bottles sold in FY24 (YourStory, 2024); about 100,000 cases a year as of January 2026 (The Spirits Business).
Read together, the table says something the press releases did not. Measured by net sales, the number a buyer actually pays for, Nao Spirits grew 31% in FY23 and 29% in FY24, then in all likelihood shrank in FY25. The 145% growth year was mostly excise passing through the books.
Where the money comes from
By product, by geography and by channel, the splits that are on record:
- By brand: about 80% Greater Than, 20% Hapusa in 2021 (company-stated to Business India). Pipa rum and the limited editions have not been broken out.
- By geography: approximately 98% of revenue from India, per the USL filing covering FY24; Virmani put the domestic share at about 90% in January 2026. Export earnings were ₹2 crore in FY24 and ₹1.13 crore in FY25.
- By Indian market: seven states in 2021 (Delhi, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Telangana, West Bengal, Assam), with Hapusa in only three of them; 11 states and three union territories by 2024 (YourStory); 17 Indian cities by March 2026 (Restaurant India).
- Export footprint: 14 countries in early 2021, 16 in 2024, 24 by January 2026, including the UK, Italy, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Nepal and the UAE.
The surprise is how little the export story matters to the money. Nao Spirits is one of the few Indian brands with a UK subsidiary and shelf space in Italian and Singaporean bars, and that visibility drove much of its reputation at home. But at ₹1.13 crore, exports were under 2% of FY25 gross revenue. The company’s fate has always been decided in three or four Indian states, which is precisely where the excise arithmetic bites hardest.
The risks
- State excise policy is the business model’s weather. Excise was 48% of Nao’s costs in FY24 and 36% in FY25, and every state sets its own duties, label fees and retail structure. Entrackr’s FY25 report named state-level regulatory changes among the reasons for the 25.6% revenue fall, and United Spirits itself reported FY26 Prestige & Above growth of 5.0%, or 8.5% excluding regional policy impacts. A single unfavourable policy in Maharashtra, Karnataka or Delhi can erase a year of brand-building, and a craft brand has no volume elsewhere to absorb it.
- The company cannot fund itself. Nao lost ₹30.25 crore in FY25 and ended the year with ₹1.13 crore of cash. Its continued existence now rests on United Spirits’ willingness to keep subscribing: ₹56 crore in June 2025 and an authorised ₹20 crore more. That is a safer position than independence, but it means the brand’s priorities are set by a parent that also sells Tanqueray and Gordon’s, and any change of view in Bengaluru or London is existential for a subsidiary of this size.
- The category it created is now crowded, and demand already exceeds supply. Stranger & Sons, Radico Khaitan’s Jaisalmer and a wave of newer craft labels compete for the same bar backs and the same premium shelf. At the same time Virmani says demand has outrun what the single Goa still can produce in every year of operation. Scaling from 100,000 to 220,000 cases inside Diageo’s manufacturing system solves the supply problem but risks the small-batch story that justifies a ₹900 to ₹2,120 price point.
The takeaway
The transferable lesson from Nao Spirits is about what a strategic investor’s first cheque really is. When Diageo India bought 22.5% in 2022 with a call option on the rest, it was not just buying a stake; it was buying the right to name the price later, and the right to wait until the seller needed it most. Three years on, the company had tripled its gross turnover, built a brand recognised on three continents and still sold control at an enterprise value below what the first cheque implied, because in the intervening year it had lost ₹30 crore and run down to ₹1 crore of cash. Founders who take a minority investment from the eventual acquirer should understand that they have also fixed the identity of their buyer, and that a fixed buyer with an option is a buyer who can afford patience. The corollary is that the business between the two cheques has to be built to survive without the second one. Nao’s founders got a real outcome, kept their jobs and their brand, and put Indian craft gin inside the world’s largest spirits company. They did not, on the evidence of the filings, get to negotiate from strength.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns Nao Spirits now?
United Spirits Limited, Diageo’s listed Indian subsidiary, agreed in June 2025 to take its holding from 30% to about 97.07% at an enterprise value of ₹130 crore, with the final 3% due by 30 June 2026. United Spirits described Nao as a subsidiary in its results from the September 2025 quarter onward, and in May 2026 said integration was complete. Anand Virmani remains co-founder and CEO.
How much revenue does Nao Spirits make?
Turnover gross of excise was ₹77.73 crore in FY24 with net sales of ₹34.83 crore, as per the audited figures quoted in United Spirits’ exchange filing. Entrackr reported FY25 gross revenue of ₹60.46 crore, down 25.6% on the year, and a net loss of ₹30.25 crore.
Is Nao Spirits profitable?
No. Reported net losses were ₹16.4 crore in FY23, ₹14.6 crore in FY24 and ₹30.25 crore in FY25, according to Entrackr’s reading of the company’s filings. Excise duty, marketing and procurement together exceeded net sales in every year on record.
What does Greater Than gin cost?
The state-set maximum retail price in Goa is ₹900 for a 750 ml bottle, and Delhi retail listings show ₹1,100 to ₹1,200 as of early 2026. Hapusa, the company’s Himalayan juniper gin, is ₹2,120 in Goa.
Why did Diageo buy Nao Spirits?
United Spirits’ filing says the acquisition gives it a presence in the Indian premium craft gin segment that complements its imported gin portfolio, led by Tanqueray. Diageo India’s chief executive Praveen Someshwar said it was the right time to scale Nao using Diageo’s distribution and production, and that the company had emerged as the leader in Indian craft gin.
Sources
Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).
- United Spirits Limited, disclosure under Regulation 30 of SEBI LODR to BSE and NSE, with press release annexed, June 2025
- Diageo India, press release “Diageo India (USL) to acquire NAO Spirits”, June 2025
- Diageo India, Ventures portfolio page for Nao Spirits, accessed September 2026
- Entrackr, “Greater Than gin maker Nao Spirits’ losses double in FY25”, December 2025
- Entrackr, “Greater Than gin maker Nao Spirits crosses Rs 80 Cr gross revenue in FY24”, 2024
- Business Today, “Diageo India to buy minority stake in gin-maker Nao Spirits for Rs 31.5 cr”, March 2022
- The Spirits Business, “Diageo takes control of Nao Spirits for $15.2m”, June 2025
- The Spirits Business, “SB meets… Anand Virmani, Nao Spirits”, January 2026
- Forbes India, “Gin’s out of the bottle: Why alcobev company Nao is in high spirits”, December 2022
- YourStory, “[Startup Bharat] How Goa-based Nao Spirits & Beverages…”, October 2020
- YourStory (YS Life), “Greater Than, India’s first craft gin, thrives on innovation”, 2024
- Business India, “Nao Spirits is in high spirits”, August 2021
- Indian Retailer, “NAO Spirits and Beverages raises $2M funding, aims to enter new states”, January 2021
- Gin Foundry, “Anand Virmani, Nao Spirits” interview, August 2018
- The Gin Guide, “Nao Spirits: Interview with Anand Virmani”, July 2025
- The Gin Guild, Ginopedia entries on NÄO Spirits distillery and Anand Virmani, accessed September 2026
- Ambrosia India, “Diageo India acquires Nao Spirits”, July 2025
- Restaurant India, “India’s first craft gin Greater Than expands to 17 Indian cities and 12 global markets”, March 2026
- Drinks Retailing News, “India’s craft gin Greater Than heads to the UK”, July 2019
- Groww, “United Spirits completes ₹130 crore acquisition of NAO Spirits”, 2025
- Quartr, United Spirits Q2 FY26 earnings summary, October 2025
- Sahi, “United Spirits Q4 net profit jumps 26%”, May 2026
- Investywise, United Spirits Q4 FY26 update, May 2026
- Livcheers, Goa price listings for Greater Than and Hapusa, accessed September 2026
- Unsobered, “Greater Than gin price in Delhi”, January 2026
- Trading Economics, USD/INR, September 2026
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