Dozens of former workers of B9 Drinks Ltd, maker of Bira 91 beer, staged a protest outdoors founder and chief govt officer (CEO) Ankur Jain’s residence in New Delhi’s Defence Colony on Sunday, alleging months of unpaid salaries and non-deposit of statutory dues even after exiting the corporate.
About 50 former workers gathered via the morning in what organizers described as a silent demonstration, saying delayed wages, pending provident fund deposits, and tax discrepancies proceed to disrupt mortgage repayments, healthcare entry, and family funds months after their exit from the corporate.
Nevertheless, workers famous that the CEO, Ankur Jain, was not at his residence throughout the demonstration.
The group has additionally launched an Instagram web page documenting worker grievances and the protest.
The protest underscores the severity of the monetary and governance disaster at B9 Drinks, as soon as amongst India’s fastest-growing craft brewers. What started as delayed wage funds in late 2024 escalated into halted manufacturing, large-scale exits and mounting statutory disputes—elevating broader questions round startup governance, worker protections, and accountability in venture-backed companies.
Workers mentioned repeated makes an attempt to hunt readability on reimbursement timelines didn’t yield agency commitments, prompting the choice to protest outdoors the promoter’s residence.
“There isn’t any different place for us to protest, besides outdoors his home,” one worker mentioned.
Jain expressed remorse over unpaid salaries. “Due to the unresolved monetary state of affairs of the corporate for the final a number of quarters, the misery, ache and anger of workers is totally comprehensible and we remorse that workers and their households are struggling on this tough state of affairs,” he mentioned.
Discussions with new buyers are on and anticipated to shut earlier than the top of this fiscal yr, Jain added.
Operations on pause
The protest comes amid a chronic monetary disaster that started in 2024 and intensified via 2025, marked by manufacturing disruptions, worker exits and stalled funds.
Beer manufacturing is learnt to have stopped from October 2025, and places of work started shutting then, too. Former workers mentioned firm e-mail servers are actually largely inactive and places of work seem vacant.
From its most just lately obtainable outcomes, its income from operations in FY24 fell ₹638.5 crore, declining from ₹824.3 crore in FY23. Its losses surged to ₹748.8 crore, from ₹445.4 crore in FY23.
The Bira beer enterprise is “on pause” for the reason that third quarter of this fiscal, Jain mentioned. “…there was no capital infusion within the enterprise from current or new shareholders since April 2024. Dues of firm workers, statutory dues (together with worker associated taxes) and distributors stay the identical because it was in Q3FY26 and there’s no change within the standing of the identical.”
He added that the corporate has been working on an “extraordinarily lean value construction” and that there was no important growth of employee-related or statutory dues throughout this era.
Unpaid dues
A former worker from the corporate’s IT division, talking on situation of anonymity, mentioned dues owed whole almost ₹25 lakh, together with about eight months of unpaid salaries and provident fund contributions. The individual added discrepancies in tax information prevented him from making use of for a US visa as tax deducted at supply funds weren’t mirrored and wage slips for a number of months in 2025 had been unavailable.
“I’m not together with provident fund and TDS into this. Provident fund resulting from me itself is ₹13 lakh. We, as a consortium of workers. have written a whole lot of letters together with to the prime minister’s workplace in addition to the labour ministry, however to no avail,” the worker mentioned.
Jain disputed estimates circulating round worker statutory liabilities, saying the ₹100 crore determine cited in relation to such dues was inflated and that precise dues had been “a small fraction” of these prices.
One other former senior worker, who labored on the firm for almost 4 years, mentioned operational stress grew to become seen internally nicely earlier than exits started.
“From January 2025 there was full turbulence and repeated assurances had been made. We’ve been given false assurances for months and informed every time that one thing can be carried out for us, however nothing has occurred but. Someway, two months of wage had been immediately paid in June,” the worker added.
“My staff members had been struggling. Many seniors together with myself collectively contributed ₹20,000 every from our financial savings for a couple of months only for survival of a number of decrease stage staff members.”
Funding strains
Jain based B9 Drinks in 2015 and launched the Bira 91 model in 2016 positioning it as a premium craft beer label concentrating on city shoppers. The corporate raised a number of funding rounds backed by buyers together with Peak XV Companions (previously Sequoia India), Anicut Capital, Sofina, and Kirin Holdings.
Its final fundraise was accomplished in June 2024 via a $25 million exterior industrial borrowing from Kirin as a part of a $50 million spherical. Nevertheless, investor considerations over mounting losses and delayed fundraising intensified via 2025.
Jain agreed in December in precept to step down from an operational management position following board and investor stress to facilitate a possible capital infusion. A closing transition settlement is predicted to be concluded in March.
Statutory considerations
Round 900 workers beforehand labored at B9 Drinks, in accordance with folks conscious of the matter, with almost 400 roles phased out via 2025 as operations slowed. Roughly 80 workers are learnt to nonetheless be working with out pay, together with manufacturing facility employees, management members and mid-management workers dealing with residual operations.
Former workers alleged provident fund and TDS quantities had been deducted however not depositedSeveral additionally mentioned company-sponsored medical insurance coverage insurance policies lapsed resulting from unpaid premiums. This might not be independently verified by Mint.
Jain mentioned discussions with new buyers are at a sophisticated stage and anticipated to conclude throughout the present fiscal yr ending 31 March 2026, following which recent capital could also be infused to restart enterprise operations and produce Bira 91 again to cabinets and bars. He added that discussions with workers, collectors and distributors towards settlement of liabilities are anticipated in Q1 of FY27.