Who zenned the dogs out? 🐶
Ayurvedic dog meal, celebrity brands, customised sneakers & sleep solutions
👋 Morning!
People often ask us why we started D2C Pulse? While we are still at a very early stage and haven’t completely thought about our vision for the Pulse, a quote by Andrew Chen, provides a good starting point:
"Writing is the most scalable professional networking activity. Building your network, your audience, and your ideas will be something you’ll want to do over your entire career. Think of your writing like a multi-decade project.”
Getting to the D2C updates …
What’s in the news? 🗞️
Chili Crunch 🌶️
Adyaway, the seller of subscription-based gourmet spice boxes, received investment from ah! Ventures through its First Gear Platform. Adyaway offers 75+ spices in categories like daily spices, gourmet salts, dry herbs & teas, serving the daily kitchen needs of Indians. It works with Indian farmers to cultivate spices the traditional way, in order to add authentic flavour to the daily meals of its conscious consumer.
Market size: The total spices market currently stands at INR 70000 cr.
Competitors: Conscious Food, Organic Tattva, Phulo Phalo, Orco, Living Food
Pulse Check: Find out how this Asian country that shifted to organic farming completely overnight and invited an economic disaster.
Pursuit of wellbeing 🧘♀️
Wellness as a concept has been in vogue in India since ancient times, but lately the sector has experienced a meteoric rise in the backdrop of the pandemic.
A curated marketplace for healthy foods, Wellcurve, raised money from Benevolent Capital. Wellcurve currently has listed 80+ niche wellness brands, including the ones addressing issues like PCOS. Wellcurve integrates content and commerce, providing users options to shop, find healthy recipes and engage with health experts.
Market size: The E-health market stand at USD 10.6 bn.
Competitors: StepSetGo, 1mg, Healthkart, Curefit, GoQii
Pulse Check: Go down the rabbit hole of e-health market in India with Inc 42’s report here.
Also, legacy FMCG brand Emami plans to partake in e-health with its recent investment in the D2C nutrition brand, Trunativ.
Who zenned the dogs out? 🐶
We’ve got updates for your furry friends also, from the health space. Ayurvedic-powered pet food and treats products start-up TABPS Pets bagged INR 4 cr.
PS: Dogs need a wellness routine too!
Celebrity and community brands 👩🎤
Bollywood star, Deepika Padukone, is launching a yet to be named lifestyle brand and a skincare line
Soho House is launching Soho Skin. The line of 11 skincare products is currently being tested by members who stay at Soho House.
Last week, Sara Ali Khan invested in the casual apparel brand The Souled Store.
Quickies from D2C ⏲️
Blinkit (the delivery artist formerly known as Grofers), which recently pivoted to the quick commerce segment, closed an additional USD 100 mn financing.
Social commerce platform CityMall that deals in grocery, white goods, and fashion products bagged USD 75 mn.
Tata joint venture Titan is in discussions to buy a significant stake in wearable device startup, Noise.
Brands that caught our eye! 🧿
Never be ordinary again 🚀
Courtside is India's House of Custom-Made Sneakers. It customizes classic sneakers & transforms them into standout pieces of wearable art. You can send them your kicks or they will procure the base shoe for your and brush it with their magical wand and accessorise it to give you something as awesome as this:
We covered the sneaker industry in our last issue, check out Sneakerheads:
Healthy Aura 🍎
Enough with the fruit-infused water fad: Auric offers Ayurvedic health drinks that can help one in staying fit and improving immunity. They offer different beverages addressing specific concerns like men’s performance, immunity, calm mind etc. (wait! Didn’t we have different teas for all this in India for ages)
Trend of the week: Sleep Solutions 😴
As people move towards a hectic lifestyle, for most of us restful sleep has become a luxury. Many D2C companies are providing innovative and better solutions to help one sleep better at night, especially mattresses which have historically experienced monopoly, high pricing and lack of awareness on what is good enough. The mattress industry is around Rs.14,000 cr. (and growing)
Reads & Recommendations 🤓
Amazing copywriting ideas and examples here.
10 visuals that will uplift your mood right now.
Rise of celebrity investments in D2C brands.
The truth behind today’s full page ad on the INR 6800 cr. Youtube economy.
A super helpful thread on email marketing tips:
That’s all for this week!
Stay tuned for more insights about the D2C start-ups in India.
Lastly, anyone looking to adopt a pupper? Check out this rockstar survivor!
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