D2C Insider to launch Rs 150 Cr VC fund
The 'ConsumerX Ventures' fund will invest in around 25 D2C brands with a focus on pre-seed and seed stages of funding.
D2C Insider, a community of D2C brand founders and enablers, plans to launch a Rs 150-crore venture capital fund called ConsumerX Ventures.
According to sources aware of this development, ConsumerX Ventures, under Category II alternative investment fund, will back around 25 early-stage D2C (direct to consumer) brands and enablers at the pre-seed and seed stages of funding. The average cheque size of each transaction is likely to be Rs 3 crore-5 crore.
The fund will target an ownership of 10-15% in the firms, with 40% of the fund reserved for follow-on capital. for selected startups.
Abhishek Shah, Chief Evangelist of D2C Insider, will be the fund's managing partner, while Chhavi Bhardwaj Kargaonkar, who currently manages the D2C Insider Super Angels fund, will be a partner at ConsumerX Ventures.
Roadshows will be launched soon for investors to participate in the fund, according to the sources.
The VC fund is already in advanced talks with a large consumer group to come on board as an anchor.
ConsumerX will capitalise on the shifts in the consumer ecosystem, which is seeing a rise in Gen Z and millennial consumers. It will also tap into the quick commerce and ecommerce channels catering to consumers in Tier II and III markets and beyond.
The fund aims to achieve Rs 100 crore in revenue alongside a path to profitability and is raising a Series A round from leading VCs within 18 months.
D2C Insider began as a community on a social networking app in 2019. Its network comprises over 25,000 members across India, 20,000+ brands, over 7,500 enabler-founders, and more than 2,500 investors.
V3 Ventures’ Arjun Vaidya, Assembly’s Aditya Khanna, BoAt’s Aman Gupta, Mamaearth’s Ghazal Alagh, The Man Company’s Hitesh Dhingra, Wow Skin’s Manish Chowdhary, mCaffeine’s Tarun Sharma, and The MomsCo’s Mohit Sadaani are among its founding members.
D2C Insider is currently deploying its Category I AIF fund Super Angels, with a corpus of Rs 25 crore, backed by 70+ operator limited partners.
Edited by Swetha Kannan