Sona Beverages, the Raipur company behind Simba craft beer, booked operating income of ₹386.36 crore (about $40 million) in the year to March 2024, up from ₹298.15 crore the year before, according to CRISIL Ratings’ March 2025 rationale. It has reached that scale without a single marquee venture round — the business runs on family capital and a ₹60 crore bank line, not the funding announcements that define most Indian consumer brands.
There is a second contradiction buried in the numbers. Simba’s beer sold for about ₹1,005 crore at the retail counter in FY25, per a February 2026 trade report, yet only ₹386.36 crore reached Sona’s books a year earlier. The rest is state excise and trade margin — the tax that makes Indian alcohol both lucrative and treacherous. This is the story of a Chhattisgarh family that built a national beer brand out of Durg rather than Bengaluru, whose founder now controls the finances of the world’s richest cricket board. Every figure below traces to a filing, a rating rationale or a report published this year or earlier, with its period named; where a source is a company claim rather than a filing, the sentence says so.
Quick facts
| Company | Sona Beverages Private Limited (brand: Simba) |
| Founded | Entity incorporated 28 February 2006 (MCA, via Tofler); Durg brewery commissioned 2014; Simba brand launched 2016 (Forbes India) |
| Founder(s) | Prabhtej Singh Bhatia (co-founder, managing director); family directors Satpal Singh Bhatia and Gurpreet Singh Bhatia; Ishwaraj Singh Bhatia (chief operating officer) |
| Businesses | Craft and mainstream beer (Simba Strong, Lager, Wit, Stout, Wild), ZigZag flavoured beverage, spirits (vodka, whisky), and contract brewing |
| Latest FY revenue | Operating income ₹386.36 crore, FY24; about ₹376 crore in the first nine months of FY25 (CRISIL, March 2025) |
| Latest FY profit | Profit after tax ₹54.25 crore, FY24 (CRISIL, March 2025) |
| Listed | Private |
| Net worth / valuation | Tangible net worth expected above ₹200 crore as of 31 March 2025 (CRISIL); no external equity valuation publicly disclosed |
| Key person | Prabhtej Singh Bhatia, also elected BCCI Honorary Treasurer on 12 January 2025 (BCCI) |
What Simba and Sona Beverages do
Sona Beverages Private Limited brews and sells beer under the Simba brand, along with a widening line of other drinks. Its flagship is Simba Strong, a high-strength lager, sitting alongside a lighter Lager, a wheat-style Wit, a Stout and, from 2025, a mass-premium beer called Simba Wild. Beyond beer, the group has added a flavoured beverage, ZigZag, and spirits including vodka and whisky labels such as Bombay Malt and Jammu Special, per CRISIL’s March 2025 note. The company sells to state-run and private liquor retailers across 16 states as of early 2026, and it still runs a contract-manufacturing line, brewing for Carlsberg inside Chhattisgarh, according to Forbes India. In plain terms: it is a homegrown brewer competing in a category long dominated by United Breweries’ Kingfisher and AB InBev’s Budweiser, with Bira 91 as its closest new-age rival.
The origin: a liquor family that wanted its own label
The Bhatias were in alcohol long before they were in branding. Forbes India traces the family’s liquor trade back to around Independence, with a grandfather who cycled some 60 kilometres a day selling liquor in Dongargarh, and describes the family as the largest liquor retailer in its state by the 1980s. Prabhtej Singh Bhatia, who studied business economics at Exeter College in the United Kingdom, wanted to move up the chain from selling other people’s drinks to making his own. The family commissioned a brewery in Durg, Chhattisgarh, in 2014, and for its first two years the plant did contract work for SABMiller — the multinational later swallowed by Anheuser-Busch InBev. The insight was simple and hard-won: the family already understood distribution, licensing and the grind of state excise better than any outside entrepreneur could, so the missing piece was a brand of its own. In 2016 the family exited retail distribution and the SABMiller contract to put its capacity behind Simba, per Forbes India. Prabhtej has said he put in about ₹100 crore of initial investment to set up the brewery and run the business, as reported by Business Insider India.
The struggle years
Simba’s early growth was fast on paper and fragile underneath. Revenue for the parent, Sona Beverages, climbed from roughly ₹33 crore in FY17 to about ₹150 crore in FY20, Forbes India reported, a near five-fold rise in three years. But that growth leaned on a dangerously narrow base. By 2020 more than 80 percent of revenue came from just three markets — Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Assam — and beer sales were bunched into the summer months, according to Forbes India’s account. The brand was strong at home and thin everywhere else; its presence in Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai, the metros where Bira 91 was winning, was described as minimal in Forbes India’s earlier profile. Expansion attempts in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand had absorbed money and returned little. On top of that sat the structural burden of the trade: every new state means a fresh excise regime, fresh label registrations and, in many states, a government-controlled buyer that sets what it will pay. A brewer can be growing volumes and still be squeezed on cash. Then came the lockdown, which turned all of these weaknesses into a single existential problem within weeks.
The turning point: the 80/20 reset of 2020
When India’s lockdown shut liquor sales in April 2020, Simba’s concentration became its greatest liability. Its three core states stalled at the same time, in what Forbes India called a summer of discontent for a brand that made most of its money in the heat. Prabhtej Singh Bhatia, then 29, responded by applying the Pareto principle across the business, as he described to Forbes India. He cut the geographic dependence by pushing south — into Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Telangana — reasoning that more than 60 percent of India’s beer is drunk south of the Vindhyas, and he had stocked bottle inventory in advance by February. He opened export lines, beginning with Australia and scouting the Middle East, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and African markets. He fast-tracked the roughly 20 percent of employees who were driving most of the results, downsized elsewhere, and abandoned expensive marketing-led entries in favour of slower, cheaper expansion. The reset worked. From about ₹150 crore in FY20, operating income reached ₹298.15 crore in FY23 and ₹386.36 crore in FY24, per CRISIL — the brand came out of the pandemic broader, more southern and less seasonal than it went in.
The money behind it
Simba’s capital story is the opposite of a typical funded startup. There is no run of headline equity rounds; the money is family equity plus bank debt, secured against a real brewery and real inventory.
- Promoter capital: Prabhtej Singh Bhatia has said he committed about ₹100 crore of initial investment to build the brewery and launch the brand (Business Insider India).
- Bank lines: CRISIL’s March 2025 rationale covers a ₹60 crore cash-credit facility from HDFC Bank, the working-capital line that funds the seasonal inventory build.
- Leverage: debt-to-net-worth was 1.51 times in FY24 and expected around 1.5 times at 31 March 2025, with net worth expected above ₹200 crore (CRISIL, March 2025).
- Credit standing: CRISIL assigned a rating of BBB+/Stable on 31 March 2025, citing an established brand, EBITDA margins above 19 percent and a moderate financial risk profile.
- Related-party exposure: CRISIL flagged that the group had invested over ₹50 crore in related entities — more than 20 percent of net worth — and extended over ₹100 crore in loans to associate concerns within 24 months, a use of cash it treats as a weakness.
How it makes money
Sona earns by brewing beer at low cost and selling it into a heavily taxed retail chain, keeping the margin between production and the price the trade pays it. The mechanics are specific:
- The product: high-strength and mainstream beer under Simba, produced at owned capacity plus contract lines, with newer premium and non-beer products layered on to raise the average price per case.
- The margin: CRISIL put the EBITDA margin above 19 percent, healthy for a beverage manufacturer, with FY24 profit after tax of ₹54.25 crore on ₹386.36 crore of operating income.
- The excise wedge: the gap between the roughly ₹1,005 crore consumers paid at retail in FY25 (a February 2026 trade report) and the operating income Sona books is mostly state excise duty and distributor-retailer margins, which sit outside the company’s revenue line.
- Contract brewing: the Durg plant brews for Carlsberg within Chhattisgarh, a business-to-business income stream that uses spare capacity (Forbes India).
- The part people get wrong: a beer brand’s reported revenue is far smaller than what drinkers spend, because excise is collected on top; scale in cases matters more than the retail headline.
The numbers
The clean, comparable series comes from CRISIL’s March 2025 rationale, with an earlier data point from Forbes India for context. Figures are Sona Beverages’ operating income and profit after tax, in ₹ crore.
| Financial year | Operating income (₹ crore) | Profit after tax (₹ crore) | Source |
| FY20 | about 150 | not disclosed | Forbes India |
| FY23 | 298.15 | 38.21 | CRISIL, March 2025 |
| FY24 | 386.36 | 54.25 | CRISIL, March 2025 |
| 9 months FY25 | about 376 | not disclosed | CRISIL, March 2025 |
Two things stand out. First, operating income grew about 29.6 percent from FY23 to FY24, and roughly nine months of FY25 nearly matched the whole of FY24 — a business still compounding fast off a mid-sized base. Second, profit is real and rising: PAT climbed from ₹38.21 crore in FY23 to ₹54.25 crore in FY24, a rarity among Indian consumer brands of this vintage, and the reason a lender was comfortable extending an investment-grade rating.
Where the money comes from
Simba’s revenue mix has shifted from a home-state concentration toward a wider, volume-led national footprint, with premiumisation and non-beer lines added on top. Per a February 2026 trade report and CRISIL:
- Geography: the brand was in 16 states in early 2026, up from 12, having recently entered Jharkhand, with Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha named as next targets.
- Historical concentration: as recently as 2020, more than 80 percent of revenue came from Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Assam (Forbes India), so the state expansion is a deliberate de-risking.
- Volume: Simba sold about 2.9 million cases in FY24 and about 4 million cases in FY25, up nearly 28 percent (trade report, February 2026).
- Retail value: gross merchandise value rose from about ₹725 crore in FY24 to about ₹1,005 crore in FY25, up nearly 39 percent (trade report, February 2026).
- Capacity: the group operated seven production units in early 2026, up from four, with Chhattisgarh capacity of about 5 lakh cases a month and an added 1.5 million cases of Northeast capacity (trade report, February 2026).
- The surprise: the newest growth is coming from outside plain beer — a flavoured drink, ZigZag, and spirits including vodka and whisky — as management tries to lift value per case without chasing volume for its own sake.
The risks
The concrete risks are the ones the business and its rating agency name, and each has a clear mechanism:
- Regulatory exposure: alcohol is taxed and controlled state by state, and CRISIL cites high susceptibility to regulatory changes across states; a single state can raise excise, freeze prices or restrict a licence and knock out a chunk of volume overnight.
- Related-party cash drain: CRISIL flagged over ₹50 crore invested in related entities (above 20 percent of net worth) and over ₹100 crore lent to associate concerns within 24 months — capital tied up outside the core brewery that could otherwise fund growth or cut debt.
- Seasonality and concentration: beer demand peaks in summer and, historically, in a few states; a weak summer or a policy shock in a core market hits cash flow hard, the very fragility that nearly sank the brand in 2020.
- Competition and scale: Simba is small next to United Breweries’ Kingfisher and AB InBev’s Budweiser, and is fighting Bira 91 for the new-age drinker; sustaining margins while expanding into new states, where it starts with 2 to 3 lakh cases, is not guaranteed.
The takeaway
The transferable lesson from Simba is that distribution knowledge can be a deeper moat than capital. The Bhatias did not out-raise their competitors; they built in a category they already understood from the retail counter up, financed it with their own money and a bank line rather than dilutive rounds, and survived a near-death event by cutting their dependence on their own best markets. When the pandemic exposed how concentrated the business was, the response was not more spending but sharper focus — fewer states carrying the weight, more of the country carrying the risk. A founder who now keeps the books for Indian cricket built his company on the least glamorous truth in consumer business: knowing exactly how a product reaches a shelf, and who taxes it on the way, can matter more than knowing how to sell a growth story.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns Simba beer?
Simba is a brand of Sona Beverages Private Limited, a Raipur-based company incorporated in 2006 (MCA records via Tofler) and controlled by the Bhatia family. Prabhtej Singh Bhatia is co-founder and managing director; Satpal Singh Bhatia and Gurpreet Singh Bhatia are directors, and Ishwaraj Singh Bhatia is chief operating officer.
How much revenue does Simba make?
Sona Beverages reported operating income of ₹386.36 crore in FY24, up from ₹298.15 crore in FY23, with profit after tax of ₹54.25 crore in FY24, according to CRISIL’s March 2025 rating rationale. It booked about ₹376 crore in the first nine months of FY25.
Is Simba the same thing as its retail sales figure?
No. Simba’s gross merchandise value — what drinkers paid at retail — was about ₹1,005 crore in FY25 (a February 2026 trade report), far above the company’s operating income, because heavy state excise duty and distributor-retailer margins sit on top of the price and never reach the brewer’s books.
Has Simba raised venture capital?
There is no publicly disclosed marquee equity round. The business has been funded largely by promoter capital — Prabhtej Singh Bhatia has cited about ₹100 crore of initial investment (Business Insider India) — plus bank debt, including a ₹60 crore HDFC cash-credit line covered in CRISIL’s March 2025 note.
What is the connection to Indian cricket?
Prabhtej Singh Bhatia, the founder of Simba, was elected Honorary Treasurer of the Board of Control for Cricket in India on 12 January 2025, per the BCCI’s own announcement.
Sources
Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).
- CRISIL Ratings, rating rationale for Sona Beverages Private Limited, March 2025 (BBB+/Stable; FY23 and FY24 operating income and PAT, net worth, gearing, EBITDA margin, brands, related-party exposure).
- Tofler, Sona Beverages Private Limited company profile (CIN, incorporation date, registered office, directors), September 2026.
- Forbes India, “How craft beer brand Simba plans to take on the giants” (founder background, brewery, launch, early revenue, markets).
- Forbes India, “How 80/20 helped Simba brew the survival keg in 2020” (2020 concentration, FY17 and FY20 revenue, pandemic pivot).
- Business Insider India, “Simba is roaring towards success…” (initial investment, early-year revenue).
- Aabkari Times, trade report on Simba expansion, February 2026 (GMV FY24 and FY25, cases, states, capacity, new products).
- BCCI, official announcement of Devajit Saikia and Prabhtej Singh Bhatia’s election, January 2025.
- Trading Economics, USD/INR reference rate, September 2026.
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