Bewakoof Balls 🏀

Male hygiene products, D2C brand collabs, & Artisan Chocolates!

Jan 3, 2022

👋 Hey!

Happy New Year to all of you and hope you’re excited for the first week of the “New Year, New Me” ritual!

While you might have a serious case of the Monday blues today, hopefully, GlobalBees D2C Pulse will help brighten up your day with exciting content around 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!

Let’s dive right into some important D2C updates we witnessed last week.

Writing our New Year’s resolution like…

What’s in the news?

🦄The last unicorn wasn’t really the last

Honasa Consumer, the owner of brands Mamaearth, The Derma Co., and Aqualogica raised USD 52 mn in the latest round of funding led by Sequoia Global at a valuation of USD 1.15 bn, making it a unicorn..yee-haw!

Founded in 2016, Honasa focused on baby care initially but moved on to become a complete personal care brand by launching different sub-brands. In 2021, it forayed into the offline channel with 7 stores and started builing a content ecosystem through acquiring content and influencer platform Momspresso.

Sector valuation: USD 26.8 bn in 2021 poised to reach USD 37.2 bn

Competition: Purplle, Nykaa, Good Glamm Group, Wow Skin

🤝 Two is better than one

D2C brands have been indulging in interesting collaborations to reach their target audience. Recently, The Souled Store collaborated with Revenant Esports to release a new range of t-shirts, hoodies, etc. that Revenant team athletes can flaunt at mega esports events like the Battle Ground India Series, Call of Duty. Meanwhile, fans will be able to purchase the exclusive collection from The Souled Store.

Other recent collabs amongst the D2C brand include

The Whole Truth Foods X Sleepy Owl

Belora Cosmetics X Super Bottoms

Switch Fix X Goodmylk

Greater Than Gin X Sleep Owl

Parent co. of Bella Vita (Skincare) recently acquired 60% in MeeSoGood, a chocolate & coffee brand. Can we expect an edible chocolate lotion, please?

🤑Bewakoof fills its coffers again

Bewakoof, a D2C apparel brand turned marketplace raised an undisclosed amount in a revenue-based financing (RBF) round from Klub’s Aceler8 fund. Bewakoof has been making super-smart moves to expand its empire from rolling out more apparel categories like Kurtis, indo-fusion apparel to signing up on its curated marketplace over 150 brands like Chumbak, Mad Over Print, Brown Mocha, Noise, Boat, Ustraa. Next in line for 2022 is home decor! Bewakoof aims to generate INR 500 cr. in brand sales from its marketplace model in the next 12 months.

Aceler8, is the INR 200 cr. RBF fund of Klub and has been set up to invest in SaaS and new age consumer companies.

Sector valuation: USD 17.8 bn in H1 2021; expected to touch USD 43.2 Bn by 2025.

Competition: The Souled Store, Myntra, Ajio, Redwolf

🍿Tech bites

Web 3 is a treasure trove that online first brands can explore to gain visibility and build communities for their brands. For instance, Metamall allows users to build and trade in its virtual mall through a virtual reality (VR) experience. It recently closed a USD 4.6 mn round through token sales (selling a piece of their virtual land). We recently wrote about Snap using immersive AR experiences to provide brand partners like Coca-Cola a dedicated storefront on Snap Chat and for users to browse and deal with each brand.
Lenkart has invested INR 5 cr. in video analytics start-up Tango Eye that helps retail stores improve and increase sales by converting video data (CCTV footage) into actionable insights.

Brands that caught our eye!

Today’s picks are based on the brands that shined at Shark Tank India last week:

🏈 The ballsy venture

After men’s grooming, the new niche alert is men’s hygiene! Sun, sweat, pollution, dirt, and grime of daily life can create discomfort for men and unhygienic conditions for the man parts. Nuutjob is a brand that focuses on male hygiene by engineering products that are specifically designed for male private parts using natural ingredients like mulberry, lemon, aloe, green tea etc. Their range includes Nuutwash, Nuutguard, and Nuutfresh.

🍧Skip the germs and meet the fun

For the parents who get scared at the thought of their kids visiting the local popsicle vendor and bringing home cholera, diarrhea and whatnot - Skippi ice pops have got the perfect solution and flavours. Made from clean, green, and healthy ingredients, Skippi offers yum popsicles in Cola, Rasberry, orange, and bubblegum flavors made from RO water. It is available on major e-comm marketplaces and recently received funding from the Sharks.

Trend of the week: Artisan Chocolates🍫

Like artisanal coffee, even homegrown dark/pure chocolates are gaining popularity over the conventional milky, overtly-sugary chocolates like Dairy Milk, Five Star. The Indian chocolate market reached a value of USD 1.9 bn in 2020. Here’re our few premium artisanal chocolate picks, do comment below and let us know your favorites!