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TriColour Venture Fund makes a Grüvi investment

Posted on June 26, 2025
Grüvi’s founders Anika and Niki Sawni
Niki Sawni, BCom’13, and Anika Sawni, co-founders of Grüvi

Kingston, Ont. — Why did you choose Smith for your MBA? Current candidates and alumni are all too familiar with this common MBA interview question. For some, it was Smith’s team-based learning approach, for others the one-year structure of its Full-time MBA program; for Tanvi Baddula, it was the TriColour Venture Fund (TCVF).

Canada’s first student-advised venture capital fund, TCVF is an experiential learning opportunity whereby MBA and Commerce students act as venture analysts for a multi-million-dollar investment fund and make real-world investment recommendations.

“This program particularly was one of the main reasons I chose to go to Queen’s,” says Tanvi, who entered the Full-time MBA program with a professional background spanning innovation and venture finance in Asia. “I always knew that, even post MBA, this was the career path I wanted to take: working with VCs and startups and accelerators.”

The experience provided Tanvi with valuable insights into the nuances of the Canadian VC industry, as her team—and others—completed initial application screening and later divided and thoroughly analyzed a shortlist of companies to determine their investability.

One of those companies was Grüvi, a non-alcoholic beverage provider. Founded by Smith Commerce alum, Niki Sawni, BCom’13, and his sister Anika Sawni, Grüvi was evaluated by Tanvi and her team over the course of four months, through a pitch presentation, face-to-face meetings, financial modelling, research and analysis. The verdict? They recommended Grüvi for investment to the TCVF’s Investment Advisory Board.

Tanvi Baddula, MBA’25

Beyond the math, Tanvi says it was Grüvi’s team that really stood out. “Talking to the founders and understanding how much research and the thought process that had gone behind all their products, their marketing plans, or their strategy—that helped a lot,” she recalls. “I think personally, as a group, we thought you could always make the math work, but it was more about whether we saw potential in the founders and the idea.”

It was seven years ago that the Sawnis set out to create what Niki describes as “a brand of alcohol-free products that was trendy, fun, and broke the stigma and embarrassment of not drinking.”

Today, the company’s line-up includes three craft beers, a red wine and sangria, dry secco and bubbly rosé, and is available in 7,500 locations across the U.S. and Canada. Grüvi’s products have been lauded in international beverage competitions and garnered the attention of angel investors and venture capital firms.

Niki says the fact that the company’s latest funding boost—$100,000—comes from Smith is a meaningful full-circle moment, and that the team is excited to use the funds to support branding and awareness for Grüvi in Canada. “Getting Grüvi into brands, bars, restaurants and music events, and building Canada’s largest dedicated non-alcoholic brand,” he says is the goal.

Tanvi, who just recently celebrated her official graduation from the Full-time MBA program, hopes to see the same. “People our age, we go out, we have parties and there’s alcohol involved…I would like to just walk into a random party and see it in somebody’s hand. I think that’s when I would say, you know, they’ve made it.”