👋 Hey!

GlobalBees D2C Pulse is back with exciting new content on the direct-to-consumer (D2C) ecosystem in India - start-ups, funding, acquisitions, partnerships, and more. If you missed our previous editions, check them out here!

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What’s in the news?

👼Baby steps to success

Anchored by the GoI, India’s sovereign fund NIIF has made its first bet (USD 240 mn) on the country's e-commerce with investment in FirstCry. Until now NIIF has been investing primarily in public infrastructure projects.

Investing round is a mix of direct and secondary funding, providing buyout to a few existing investors, while certain existing investors like Premji Invest doubled down on their investment, why not? Firstcry’s parent BrainBees Solutions is truly shaping up to be a conglomerate, housing logistics spinout XpressBees and aggregator GlobalBees.

👔Offline luxury’s stride into online retail

Aditya Birla Fashion wants to leverage its capabilities around design, product creation and brand building to craft a blockbuster portfolio in the digital space (web and app). Not a rodeo for Birla though, it has recently invested in brands like Sabyasachi, Tarun Tahiliani, Jaypore and Masaba as it warms up to the changing tastes of India’s millennials.

PS: Even Reliance Fashion is gunning to democratise fashion by partnering with courtier Rahul Mishra to create a new fashion D2C label.

PPS: Bestseller India, which sells brands such as Jack & Jones, Vero Moda and Only in the country, has partnered with Trell to sell its products on the social commerce platform.

🌱This is the Millennial Vita

Express plant based harvest delivery platform (web + app) Plantvita closed its seed investment round this week. PlantVita is helping people get fit by supplying delicious plant-fuelled solutions, exciting recipes and lifestyle-driven nutritional advice. Their products include fresh ingredients, dairy alternatives, plant-based supplements like extra firm tofu, hemp hearts, fresh soy milk, organic tempeh etc.

🏪D2C gets darker

Another model becoming prominent amongst brands to capitalise on India's USD 100+ bn D2C opportunity is the dark store. ZFW runs a dark store platform enabling D2C brands to reach more customers in the fastest possible time (30 min, 2 hrs, same day) while solving for high RTOs and customer experience.

It’s a clever business model: quick fulfillment for brands using unutilised spaces. Per RedSeer Management Consulting, dark stores are a USD 2 bn industry.

⏲️Quickies

• Bombay Shaving Company grabbed another USD 6 mn soon after the INR 160 cr. investment by Malabar Investments last month.

• Farm to table platforms are getting juicer with EekiFoods, Zama Organics and Jalongi raising investments.

Brands that caught our eye!

🍵Macha revolution is coming

In these times of monotonous food choices, consumers have been experimenting with reliable ingredients. Tencha hooked up the Matcha craze to sell rejuvenating Matcha products catering to skin (face mask, cleanser, toner) and taste buds (ice blends, green tea powder). It is indeed difficult to matcha-up this offering!

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🐽Breathe In and Breathe out

BIBO takes care of your Breathe In and Breathe out. It takes care of users’ respiratory wellness; all naturally - both acute and chronic needs, e.g. cough congestion, sinsus an-d asthma.

It offers modern solutions to ageold problems like Kadha shots, vapour patch, nasal spray etc.

🧦Sock-o-meter for patients

FeetWings is a smart wearables company that offers IoT socks to monitor diabetes - for some, a better alternative to wristwatch wearables. Monitoring athletic performance is catching on with millennials and GenZ looking forward to leading healthier and fitter lives.

Trend of the week: Indigenous Foods 🌶️

Murukku, Tapioca and Banana chips from South India, spicy chutneys and pickles from Rajasthan, Batata Natchni from Maharashtra are foods that you probably ate last at your grandmother’s home. D2C brands are taking the age-old kitchen wisdom & long-lost arts to meet the convenience the current generations love. Some of our favourites include:

Reads & Recommendations

1. Understand all about third party cookies and how does a cookie-less world look?

2. Trends to watch out for in 2022 by Wunder Thompson.

3. Companies need a media arm:

Balaji Srinivasan @balajis

Every SaaS company should have a media arm with a newsletter that gives industry news. Just acquire an influencer in your space with a solid following. Make them editor-in-chief. Bundle their content for free with your software subscription. And make all customers readers.

March 23rd 2021

415 Retweets3,438 Likes

Goodies for D2C Pulse Readers 🎁

We finished our very first Flex your Specs Referral Programme 🕶️ last week. Missed it? No worries, we will launch Referral 2.0 very soon!

We are still gushing about the number of entries we have received. We are reaching out to the clans who have completed the referral tasks, to send them a hot pair of computer glasses!

That’s all for today!

Byeee!

To start-off your week on a happy note, here’s a heartwarming photograph of Inji the rescued dog - you can see how big a difference adoption makes to a dog’s life:

Stay tuned for more insights about the D2C start-ups in India.