YourStory's Brands of New India Mega Summit is here!

Gain insights into trends, innovations, ecosystem enablers, and more that are fuelling the global expansion of Indian D2C brands at the two-day virtual event on January 28-29, 2022.

Friday January 28, 2022 , 4 min Read

Good Morning,

The first edition of YourStory's Brands of New India Mega Summit is finally here!

One of the biggest and most in-depth conferences highlighting various aspects of the country’s D2C sector, the Brands of New India Mega Summit will bring together founders, emerging entrepreneurs, business heads, investors, ecosystem enablers, and more on a single platform.

The two-day virtual event, to be held on January 28-29, 2022, will host conversations with industry stalwarts to understand the factors that have helped D2C brands, their growth trajectory, current and future trends, and more.

Today, on Day 1 of the summit, Aman Gupta of boAt Lifestyle; Mensa Brands founder and CEO Ananth Narayanan; and Vineeta Singh, Founder and CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics, will share their thoughts on what it takes to build the ‘Great Indian D2C story’.

The day will also host insightful masterclasses from industry experts on the growth of India’s D2C ecosystem. While Jesse George of WebEngage will take a look at marketing, Gupshup's Gaurav Kachhawa will throw light on conversational commerce, and Razorpay's Gaurav Dadhich and Devesh Gupta will tell how businesses can unlock their growth potential.

Here's a look at some of the prominent entrepreneurs, business leaders, enablers, and changemakers from India's D2C ecosystem who will be a part of action-packed sessions:

Ajith Pai, Chief Operating Officer, Delhivery
Harshil Mathur, Co-founder and CEO, Razorpay
Varun Alagh, CEO and Co-founder, Mamaearth
Bimal Kartheek Rebba, Co-founder, Trell
Nitin Agarwal, CEO, GlobalBees
Dipanjan Basu, Partner, Fireside Ventures
Gaurav Mangla, Co-founder and CEO, Pickrr
Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, Director and Co-founder, Wakefit
Akash Gehani, Co-founder, Instamojo
Shantanu Deshpande, Founder and CEO, Bombay Shaving Company, and many more!

To log in to our virtual event platform and experience Brands of New India Mega Summit, join here.

For a line-up of all the action-packed sessions at the mega summit, check out Brands of New India Mega Summit website.

The Interview: ScaleUp India Roundtable

In this episode of ScaleUp India Roundtable, direct-to-consumer (D2C) industry insiders reveal what it takes to run the business today. Speakers include Manish Chowdhary, Co-founder, WOW Skin Science; Bimal Rebba, COO and Co-founder, Trell; Bharati Balakrishnan, Country Head and Director, Shopify India; and Shobhit Mohan, VP - Marketing & Branding, PayU India.

In a conversation with Shradha Sharma of YourStory, panellists discuss the fundamentals of a D2C business and explore how functions such as marketing, logistics, and tech help understand the nuances of building a D2C brand, and how these brands can win the consumer market battle.

Editor’s Pick: App Friday

In the last two years, several folks have resorted to downloading calendar apps to plan day-to-day schedules. However, in-built calendars on the phone do not easily sync with all your email ids and are often still quite traditional in their features.

DigiCal Calendar syncs schedules from other calendars on different email ids. Released in 2012, the app has over five million downloads and a 4.2 rating on the Google Play Store. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Vocal for Lokal

Bengaluru-based hyperlocal social media startup Lokal began operations in 2018. Four years and a pandemic later, the platform has experimented with different use cases. Currently active in 180 districts, the app claims to be profitable in 40 locations and aims to operate in 500 districts by the end of 2022.

Has Lokal, which gained popularity mostly through word of mouth, cracked the regional language app space — a segment that has been elusive to several deep-pocketed players? Read more.

Lokal startup snapshot — *Credit: YourStory Design*

News & Updates

Hike Founder and CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal today announced Ethereum infrastructure scaling solution Polygon is investing in the Hike team building Rush Gaming Universe (RGU) — a virtual world.

Ola Electric, the electric vehicle arm of Ola Cabs' parent ANI Technologies, has announced setting up an engineering and design centre in Coventry, United Kingdom to create the next generation vehicles. For the facility, the company has earmarked an investment of $100 million over the next five years.

Cloud kitchen company Curefoods has announced a merger with Maverix, a Mumbai-based foodtech player. Following the merger, Curefoods has become the second-largest cloud kitchen player in India in terms of footprint, with the largest manufacturing capability in the fresh food space.