Brands of India: Revenue-based financing can fuel D2C growth meaningfully, says GetVantage founder, CEO

“There’s no better time than now to get off your plan, launch your product or service, and go directly to consumers,” quips GetVantage founder and CEO, Bhavik Vasa, speaking at YourStory’s Brands of India event, which aims to catalyse the growth of India's D2C economy, on Friday.

GetVantage is a revenue-based financing platform that helps startups and entrepreneurs raise capital without any equity dilution, which, anyone who has spent a day engaging with the ecosystem knows is a point of contention for startup founders.

D2C brands today are witnessing explosive growth, thanks to the nearly 200 million people in India who shop online. Fuelling this growth is capital intensive, and many a D2C brand have, in the past year, gone knocking on institutional investors’ doors, only to end up parting with valuable equity to access growth capital.

Bhavik says startups typically meet a myriad of challenges when they find themselves in this situation, including not being able to access these investors because they don’t have any personal connections, or having to part away with too much equity, too soon, to raise enough capital and chase that growth momentum.

What GetVantage solves is exactly this —  it helps brands raise money without worrying about giving away equity, and, because it’s an open platform where anyone can come and apply, entrepreneurs don’t need to go looking for personal connections.

“The need for growth capital is the differentiating factor for D2C brands, and in our own small way, with alternative funding models like revenue-based financing, we’re able to back, fuel and fund the growth of such companies,” he says.

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Mumbai-based GetVantage is helping startups raise funds without giving away equity

Especially for an emerging market like India, there is a need for all sorts of sources of capital so that businesses are able to grow quickly. But unlike venture capital that involves founders giving away valuable control of their companies, or venture debt, where interest rates are backbreaking, RBF companies such as GetVantage merely charge a flat fee from future cash flows.

Digital solution for digital brands

The biggest tailwind for D2C brands today is the pace of tech adoption in the country, and the ease with which people are accessing it. If the ecosystem in which the startup is operating is digital, why shouldn’t capital be raised digitally too, asks Bhavish.

Which is why GetVantage’s application and the capital-raise process is also all digital. Startups simply have to plug in their revenue accounts, payment gateways, or anything that captures their cash flow onto GetVantage’s portal, and, in less than a few days, get an offer if they meet all the checkboxes.

GetVantage has made over 150 investments across 75 D2C brands from various sectors, to date.

"The next decade belongs to India and the local brands of India,” Bhavik says, adding GetVantage also makes it easier for startups to go for more fundraising rounds once they’re in its ecosystem, mostly because all their cashflow software and data is already plugged in.

All of which essentially translates into fast-growing D2C brands being able to solely focus on growth without worrying about capital, as opposed to spending months going through tedious, time-consuming and complex fundraising processes.

Bhavik's session and more such events can be accessed on YourStory's Brands of India platform. The event aims to bring together D2C ecosystem stakeholders, including brand builders, D2C startups, investors, corporates, and policymakers, to discover, build, and help daring entrepreneurs create an additional 500 Brands of India in the next three years, and existing brands to accelerate their business to $100 million from $10 million.

To further this, YourStory will collaborate with select partners who can help influence outcomes towards enabling:

• Discovery of the most promising, emerging D2C brands and startups
• Incubation and funding of early-stage, high potential brands
• Influence conversations around policy to accelerate sector growth
• Support in building brand identity for key brands
• Enable ecosystem partnerships to facilitate scale for growth-stage brands
• Fuel the expansion of D2C brands in India and across the world

Brands of India is a YourStory initiative to catalyse the growth of India's D2C economy. The initiative will bring together D2C ecosystem stakeholders, including brand builders, D2C startups, investors, corporates, and policymakers, to discover, build and help daring entrepreneurs create an additional 500 Brands of India in the next three years.

To know more about this initiative and the D2C ecosystem, visit brandsofindia.yourstory.com.