D2C Pulse is a newsletter written by the team at GlobalBees, curating happenings in the direct-to-consumer ecosystem of India.

Spotify’s Wrapped 2022 took over all our Instagram Stories last week with friends showing off their tastes and personalities…For a third year running, Bad Bunny was the most-streamed artist with 18.5 billion streams. Taylor Swift came in second, with Midnights already the #4 most-streamed album in the US. Know why we think Taylor Swift is one heck of a business woman.

Despite the popular opinion that the GIF is dead, we are still obsessed, in fact, here are GIPHY’s top GIFs and Clips of 2022. Coming to D2C updates, 2022 saw startups struggling to raise money and many announcing layoffs. However, the last few weeks of 2022 seem to have brought a glimmer of hope for India's startup ecosystem as several startups raised funds this week.

🗞️Marketplace Updates

• Relove (India), a tech platform that helps brands recycle by enabling a resale program, has raised approx. ₹5.71 crores (US$700,000) in a pre-seed funding round led by Hearth Ventures, with participation from angel investors like Anita Dongre. Through this funding, Relove wants to normalize having a resell button on every website.

• Tata 1mg-owned omnichannel health platform Healthkart has raised close to US$65 million in funding from investors Temasek Holdings and A91 Partners. It also owns and manufactures eight nutritional brands like MuscleBlaze, The Protein Zone, TrueBasics, HKVitals, bGreen, Nouriza, and Gritzo.

• After adding American Retailer Macy’s products on its platform, Myntra continues to bring International players to India with the latest one being the UK fashion house, Boohoo Group, that will include brands like Dorothy Perkins and Nasty Gal. 

🍕D2C Bites

• Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail’s venture TMRW will invest nearly ₹300 crore to acquire stakes in 8 different digital-first lifestyle brands, including D2C brand Bewakoof, Berrylush, athleisure brand Nobero, casual wear brand Urbano and Veirdo. With these brands on board, TMRW will achieve a revenue run-rate of ₹700 crore.

• Noise has appointed cricketer Virat Kohli as its new brand ambassador to promote Noise’s line of smartwatches.

• Suwasthi, a BPC brand that offers luxurious and ayurvedic skincare products, raised ₹2 crore from revenue-based financing platform Velocity.

• Evocus, a black alkaline water manufacturer received ₹10 crore as working capital loan from Red Fort Capital Finance, at the back of Black water’s or alkaline water’s popularity after top celebrities were spotted using it.

• Service providers also gaining big:

  • Ex-Flipkart executive Ranjith Boyanapalli’s Flash raises US$5.8 million funding. Flash aims to build unified digital identities for frequent shoppers that will allow online shoppers to access personalized experiences, rewards, and clutter-free communications post-purchase.

  • Prodo, an on-demand manufacturing and procurement platform that matches the right manufacturing unit using data to its clients, closed a US $1 million seed round. The B2B buying experience today remains largely offline and fullstack marketplaces like Prodo can bring the whole buying experience online.

• Here’s the Indian start-up landscape as of Dec 2022:

  

  Inc42 @Inc42

  India’s Ecommerce Landscape: Key Players⁠ 🔹Here are the list of Unicorns, Soonicorns and Growth Stage startups that have emerged between Jan - Sept 2022.⁠ 🔹In terms of unicorns, there are 24 in total, with a total funding of $29 Bn, top hub being Delhi-NCR.⁠

  

  8:37 AM ∙ Nov 29, 2022

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❤️Brand that caught our eye

Curated by Amitabh Bachchan and Anuradha Sansar, Legend 42 is a gender-fluid homegrown perfume brand that is born out of a philosophy that fragrance, much like clothing, can be a means of expression. Its blends are crafted from ingredients like jasmine, lavender, saffron, sandalwood, and pink champaca. Its collection comprises three variants, flamboyance, heritage and In-DNA, each, has two sub-variants, black and white, symbolising the yin and yang.

📚Reads and Recommendations

• The Rise of Digital Bazaars in India.

• Household care trends for 2023.

• Coolest skincare GenZ brands.

• It’s Christmas month, holiday time for families, moment marketing frenzy for brands. Here’re the best Christman ads of all time:

MATT GRAY @matt_gray_

The 10 best Christmas ads of all time: 1. Mercedes-Benz, 2013

1:20 PM ∙ Dec 3, 2022

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240,558Likes17,520Retweets

While we are on topic of Christmas and gifts - we stole Santa’s notes on every children’s favorite toy by country.

That’s all for this week! Bye!

Stay tuned for more.

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