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The critical importance of the supply chain across industry sectors and businesses had been underlined when the Covid-19 pandemic hit India and the rest of the world. The unexpected turn of events forced businesses to work on alternative models where the supply chain journey — right from raw material procurement to manufacturing to hitting the points of sale — would not involve too many intermediaries. So, it is not surprising that agile and digital-first businesses across the country have adopted the direct-to-consumer (D2C) model, focussing on lean, asset-light operations and hassle-free, faster fulfilment for better customer retention.

Just like many other technology-driven solutions, the D2C revolution in India has been spearheaded by the country’s startup ecosystem. In the past few years, more than 800 new-age brands bade farewell to middlemen of all sorts and took the D2C route to ensure business growth in a cost-effective way. In brief, the D2C model has witnessed a massive uptick as it enables brands to bypass intermediaries, reach consumers faster and cater to them more efficiently.

Operational streamlining and relatively better control over the supply chain also help Indian D2C brands clock higher revenue growth than their traditional counterparts. For instance, popular beauty brands Revlon and Lotus took around 20 years to reach the INR 100 Cr revenue mark. In contrast, new-age D2C brands Mamaearth and SUGAR Cosmetics took four and eight years, respectively, to reach that milestone.

To assess the impact of D2C on the Indian retail and ecommerce markets, the Inc42 Plus team has developed the most comprehensive D2C brands tracker in India. It features 100+ D2C brands across 10 key data points and covers each brand’s operational and financial performances.

As a key enabler of entrepreneurship and the startup ecosystem in India, we believe it is important to provide entrepreneurs, investors and other industry stakeholders with accurate data on the go. The D2C tracker will be regularly updated in sync with the changes in funding, cap table and revenue.

India’s D2C Brands Tracker: Funding, Investors, Founders And More

Notes:

• Tracker was last updated on: 8 July 2021
• The funding amount is taken from multiple secondary sources
• Employee size of the companies are directly taken from LinkedIn
• Funding numbers are rounded off and only disclosed rounds are included