Hello 👋 !

It’s been proven time and again - Love for a Brand love goes beyond its Products and that’s why Brands try to keep bringing “unique” experiences to their consumers. Recently Coca-Cola and Facebook opened their physical stores with experiences like special edition merchandise, VR, etc. to engage with their audience. Beverage brand Jagermeister also tried its hand at it.

What’s in the news? 🗞️

🪓 Woodchuck Street

Jaipur-based custom furniture marketplace Wooden Street raised USD 30 mn in a funding round led by WestBridge Capital. Valued at USD 156 mn, Wooden Street offers modular furniture and home décor furnishings, on both online and offline channels. It has also invested in virtual reality and 3D visual-enabled furniture buying. With this capital infusion, it plans to open 200 physical stores and onboard 3000+ home decor brands on its platform, over the next 2 years.

Market size & Competition: USD 2 bn by 2025. Pepperfry, Wakefit, Furlenco, HomeLane, Rentomojo.

🎳 Amazon strikes Shopify

Amazon is offering the ‘Shop with prime’ option to merchants beyond the Amazon marketplace i.e. Amazon will handle warehousing, logistics, and payments processing for orders placed on a merchant’s own webstore.

It’s a win-win for both - Merchants get to keep customer data otherwise absent in the marketplace model and provide fast and free delivery to their customers, while Amazon gets additional commission.

Why is this a blow to Shopify? Shopify has been trying to provide end-to-end solutions to merchants on its platform, including fulfillment. With this move, Amazon will surely take a piece of Shopify’s commission pie.

PS: Flipkart is also venturing into a similar model.

🤓 The New Warby Parker

Lenskart, now a USD 5 bn behemoth, raised another USD 250 mn in its ongoing Series I. Lenkart is a pioneer in Indian Eyewear Space for its business model broke the eyewear mafia by vertically integrating the spectacle supply chain, making the prices more affordable.

Lenskart has almost 1000 stores in India and a strong digital presence. Seeing Lenkart’s success, more such players are slowly mushrooming - EyeMyEye, ClearDekho, Intellilens.

An IPO is the next obvious for Lenskart, but it has delayed its plans owing to the market conditions and performance of recently IPOed companies (PayTM, Nykaa.)

👩‍🎤 Celebrity Brands

Femtech brand Nua roped in Deepika Padukone and Jewelry brand Priyassi (a brand of Mensa Brands) roped in Dia Mirza, as their brand ambassador, respectively. Both actresses are already faces of numerous other D2C brands: Oziva, Beco etc.

🍸 Who’s Greater Than this

Nao Spirits, the maker of Indian craft gin brands Greater Than and Hapusa, has raised INR 2.5 mn from United Spirits. Nao Spirits has become a prominent alcohol brand as its sales accelerated during the pandemic with people choosing to consume premium gin at home. United Spirits Limited (Diageo India) is the subsidiary of global beverage alcohol company Diageo PLC, owing premium brands including Johnnie Walker, Black Dog, Black & White, etc.

Market size and players: USD 52.5 bn (2020), Stranger & Sons, Jaisalmer, Terai

🍪 D2C Bites

• Sequoia-backed Wingreens Farms has acquired Bengaluru-based packaged food brand Postcard, for around USD 2.1 mn. Postcard sells local snacks like Kolhapuri Bhadang, Mysuru Murukku, Andhra Ginger Pickle, among others.

• Other food brands with funding include Teamonk, VS Mani & Co, OneGreen.

Brands that caught our eye! 🧿

💆‍♀️ Treating body like a temple

Body Cafe is raising awareness about organic products made from forgotten ancient Indian ingredients, Ayurveda and Healing Aromatherapy. It offers products for grooming, pets, and homes that are handmade and environmentally conscious. It has partnered with Ecovia (Returnable packaging solution for E-commerce) and uses biodegradable bottling, to build a brand that truly cares.

🥫Get canned with LIIT

Love for fantastic cocktails and convenience have come together to make a brand called InACan. Experience the satisfying snap of a can, the sounds of the drink effervescing, and a fantastic, satisfying flavor that satiates your desires with every InACan cocktail! Its flavors include Vodka Mule, Rum Latte.

Trend of the Week: Warehousing 🏠

India's Warehousing sector is picking up pace with massive investments poised to reach USD 10 bn over the next 4-5 years. Warehousing start-ups have been working on innovative solutions including offerings like order and inventory management, and green infrastructure.

Reads & Recommendations 🤓

• What’s in it for the brands in the membership model.

• Founder’s guide to discipline.

• Falling era of minimalist, blanding trend.

That’s all for this week!

Stay tuned for more insights about the D2C ecosystem in India.

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