Earlier this month we concluded India’s largest D2C and ecommerce conference — The D2C Summit. In the last one year, India has seen an incredible rise of brands that have now become household names, and have achieved scale at a much faster rate compared to traditional brands.
Today, India is home to more than 800 D2C brands across categories, targeting a $100 Bn+ addressable market by 2025.
To decode this massive opportunity as well as impart knowledge, actionable insights to new and upcoming startups in this domain, we conceptualised The D2C Summit as a single day event. But, looking at the demand, as well as the initial response, we received from our partners and sponsors, we decided to turn it into a two-day conference with three parallel stages! And in the end, the response was overwhelmingly positive.
While we anticipated over 1,000 attendees, the event saw the participation of over 2,500 attendees who not only viewed the sessions but also engaged, posted questions, networked and much more! And took home 2 days + 30 hours of content and insights!
And this wouldn’t have been possible without our partners and the enablers of this emerging sector, who not only helped us in executing this conference but also enabled us in making it a grand success.
We would like to take this moment to thank all our partners!
Presenting Partner
Shiprocket 
Founded in 2017 by Gautam Kapoor, Saahil Goel and Vishesh Khurana, logistics tech startup, Shiprocket enable global and domestic shipping for marketplace sellers and D2C businesses.
Helping ecommerce sellers ship their products and manage logistics, Shiprocket claims to have a monthly active merchant base of 60K and 10K D2C brands.
Not only did Shiprocket supported us in bringing this summit to completion, but its cofounders Kapoor and Goel also hosted a panel discussion and masterclass — ‘Logistics Cost Reduction Strategies To Improve Your D2C Margins’ and ‘How To Get The First 1,000 Orders For Your D2C Brand’ — respectively.
“It was a delightful experience for me to share my thoughts on the upswing of the D2C industry. Such initiatives become instrumental for the future as they unite the industry and give it a collective voice,” said Goel.
Co-Presenting Partners
MoEngage
Bengaluru and US-based MoEngage was founded in 2014 by Raviteja Dodda and Yashwanth Kumar. The startup offers its clients a one-to-one user engagement platform to help organise seamless and effective campaigns via push notifications, in-app recommendations, email, and other channels.
The startup allows brands to personalise engagement with the customers across channels via the insights, analytics and more centralised on a dashboard. The company is operational in 35 countries in its portfolio with more than 500 Mn monthly active users, and processing over 1 Tn interactions and over 50 Bn messages every month.
Raviteja moderated a session on “Winning Customers Through Inclusive And Purposeful D2C Marketing”, with panellists — Angad Bhatia, founder, MensXP and CEO, India Lifestyle Network; Amuleek Singh Bijral, cofounder & CEO, Chai Point; Ayushi Gudwani, founder & CEO, FableStreet; and Nishanth Chandran, founder & CEO, TenderCuts.
The panel decoded what building an inclusive brand in India means and how brands can go about building inclusive and purposeful marketing strategies that help them drive users to their native platforms.
Trell
Founded in 2017 by Pulkit Agrawal, Prashant Sachan, Arun Lodhi and Bimal Kartheek Rebba, Trell enables lifestyle discovery through video-based content. The Bengaluru-based startup supports various Indian languages, allowing users to create visual collections of their experiences.
Recently, the startup raised $45 Mn in Series B funding round led by Mirae Asset, H&M Group and co-led by LB Investments.
Supporting the D2C cause, Trell’s founders, Agrawal and Rebba participated in The D2C Summit by Inc42 Plus as speakers guiding the audience towards scaling a D2C startup. While Agarwal was a panellist discussing the role of ecommerce enablers, Rebba hosted a masterclass on social video and vernacular content for the sector.
Both highly engaging sessions were very well received by the audience, clearly depicting the need for such knowledge-sharing sessions in the ecosystem.
“The D2C Summit has been instrumental in bringing together different stakeholders from the ecosystem. This helps in fostering new ideas, concepts and solutions for the vast and diverse Indian audience and boosting innovation that can actually make a difference. Such forums are also a great way to unlock the real potential of upcoming market trends,” said Agrawal.
Associate Sponsors
Akamai 
Leveraging the power of the multi-cloud world, Akamai’s intelligent edge platform surrounds all levels from the enterprise to the cloud. Its portfolio includes security, web and mobile performance, and OTT solutions, supported by 24/7/365 monitoring and more.
With the rising security concerns, Akamai helps brands understand and integrate security in the initial stages of their businesses to help them scale securely. To that goal, Jatin Gambhir, country business head at Akamai India, hosted a panel on “Why D2C Brands Need To Address The Privacy & Security Conundrum”.
Joining the discussion as panellists were Ramneek Khurana, cofounder, Lenskart; Raghav Chandra, cofounder, UrbanCompany; Rakesh Malhotra, founder, Livpure; Manisha Raisinghani, cofounder & CTO, LogiNext; and Akhil Gupta, CTO, FabAlley.
AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud platform, claiming to offer over 200 services from data centers globally. Offering services ranging from infrastructure technologies — compute, storage, and databases — to emerging technologies — AI/ML, data lakes and analytics, and IoT, the platform counts all entities such as startups, enterprises and government agencies as its clients.
From AWS’ legal Indian entity Amazon Internet Services Pvt Ltd (AISPL) Kumara Raghavan, who heads its startup businesses in India, joined Trell’s Agarwal as a panellist to help D2C startups scale up with the help of the marketplaces and other enablers.
Delhivery
Founded in 2011, logistics tech unicorn Delhivery provides a full suite of logistics services such as express parcel transportation, LTL and FTL freight, reverse logistics, cross-border, B2B & B2C warehousing and more. The IPO bound company claims to have successfully fulfilled more than 850 Mn transactions since its inception and works with over 10K direct customers.
The VP for Business Development and Head of Ecommerce at the platform, Rohan Shanbhag also took a masterclass on “How D2C Brands Can Drive Up Their Customer’s Lifetime Value” at The D2C Summit. Elaborating various examples and anecdotes from their journey so far, the session garnered a lot of interest and attention from the D2C ecosystem.
Greenhonchos
An enabler focussed on the growth of retail businesses with full-stack ecommerce technology, Greenhonchos was founded in 2012, by Navin Joshua and Sumit Agarwal. The startup also launched KartMax, built with omnichannel and hyperlocal features, to help manage the growth of its D2C brands with its performance-driven marketing solutions.
Detailing out on the recently popular term, ‘headless commerce’, Joshua from Greenhonchos hosted a masterclass at The D2C Summit on ‘How Headless Commerce Can Unlock Your D2C’s Potential’.
Gupshup
Conversational messaging platform catering to businesses across sectors, the newly minted unicorn, Gupshup, was founded by Beerud Sheth in 2004. Offering solutions ranging from messaging APIs, bot building tools, conversational AI to client-side software, the IPO-bound platform counts names such as Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, HDFC Bank, Ola, Zomato, and Flipkart as its clients.
To help the brands understand the solution and how it has helped the many enterprises and startups in its portfolio, Sheth hosted an extremely engaging and insightful masterclass at the summit on ‘How Conversational Commerce Can Accelerate Your D2C Brand’.
PayU
Founded in 2002, this fintech giant has been simplifying payments for online merchants via ebay to integrate solutions with web and mobile applications. In India, PayU claims to serve more than 4.5 Lakh merchants with over 100 payment methods.
Leveraging the experience and insights from across the globe, garnered over the years, PayU’s Shobhit Mohan, VP, Brand & Marketing, took a masterclass on ‘Simplifying Cross Border Payments For D2C Brand Scale Up’.
Razorpay
Founded in 2013, the fintech unicorn, offers a wide range of solutions encompassing SME payroll management, payments, banking, lending and insurance needs.
The startup also launched its neobanking platform, RazorpayX, in 2018 and claims to not only help more than 15K Indian businesses, but also to have recorded 400% growth in transaction volume between April’20 – April’21.
Khilan Haria, head of product, payments at the unicorn, also hosted a masterclass at the summit on ‘How D2C Brands Can Boost Conversions By Optimising Their Payment Experience’. The session was aimed at helping brands leverage payment data to drive product and strategic decision-making in real time, as well as increase customer loyalty.
Shipway
Founded by Gaurav Gupta and Vikas Garg in 2015, this logistics startup focusses on the post-purchase experience for the D2C and ecommerce brands. Claiming to have processed more than 4 Mn shipments every month with over 500 logistics partners, the platform integrates seamlessly with Shopify, Woocommerce, Magento and other ecommerce software providers.
Furthermore, it leverages the on-ground data to provide brands with insights and analytics, allowing them to improve cost efficiency and improve the success rate.
Shipway’s Gupta also hosted a masterclass at the summit on ‘How Customer Engagement Powers D2C Growth’, to help brands understand why post-purchase engagement is crucial, the metrics to track and improve, and more.
Velocity
Launched in early 2020 by Abhiroop Medhekar, Atul Khichariya and Saurav Swaroop, Velocity helps brands with revenue-based financing up to INR 2 Cr ($280K) with zero equity dilution or collateral. With a focus on online marketplace sellers and D2C businesses in India, Velocity claims over 300 businesses have signed up for its RBF product.
To help more brands understand revenue-based financing, its benefits, impact and more, Medhekar hosted a masterclass on ‘Leveraging Revenue-Based Financing To Multiply Your D2C Growth’.
The contribution of the startup at the summit didn’t end there, Medhekar also moderated a panel discussion on ‘D2C Secrets To Compete With FMCG Giants & Win’, hosting Nitin Saluja, founder, Chaayos; Aarti Gill, cofounder, OZiva; Chakradhar Gade, cofounder, Country Delight; Shashank Mehta, founder & CEO, The Whole Truth; Dhimant Parekh, founder & CEO, The Better Home, as panellists.
Vue.ai
A flagship platform of the Mad Street Den — founded in 2013 by Ashwini Asokan and her husband Anand Chandrasekaran —, Vue.ai uses image recognition and data science to help retailers make better, faster decisions. It combines seven different products, namely, VueTag, VueModel, VueStyle, VueCommerce, VueMail, VueFind and VueStudio and claims to serve over 100+ global retailers today.
Helping propel the D2C cause further, the startup live-streamed and shared insights from all the sessions hosted at The D2C Summit 2021 and was among the most highly engaged partners on social media. 🙂
Not only that but Asokan hosted a masterclass at the summit on ‘Why Going AI-Native Should Be D2C’s Big Bet For Growth’, to help brands move from a cloud and mobile native world into an AI-native world and accelerate scale up.
WebEngage
WebEngage started as merely a pop-up window and on-site engagement tools. Today, it is a full stack marketing automation solution helping brands from across the sectors. The platform enables brands to do effective and intelligent omnichannel engagement leveraging data, text and personalised communication, WebEngage boasts of having more than 300 enterprise customers across the globe, and over 150 Mn users engaged per day.
The VP of customer success at the platform, Keyur Dhami hosted a masterclass at the summit, to help brands understand, ‘How To Solve The Conversion And Retention Puzzle For Your D2C Product’.
Supporting Partners
Clootrack 
An AI-driven data analytics platform, Clootrack was founded by Shameel Abdulla and Subbakrishna Rao, in 2017. Analysing customer conversations on social media and customer service issues, it helps brands uncover and quantify their perceptions. It does so leveraging proprietary deep learning algorithms, and has two pending patents.
Deskera 
Founded in 2008, by Shashank Dixit, Somesh Misra, Brajesh Sachan and Paritosh Mahana, Deskera is an all-in-one cloud-based accounting software for SMBs and startups. Its features include invoice management, CRM, inventory management, financial reporting, and more. Additionally, it also offers app-based accounting, invoicing and tax management solutions.
Paytm First Games
Incorporated in 2018, Paytm First Games is a one-stop platform that includes fantasy sports, casual games, and esports. The company claims to have more than 4.5 Cr gamers, and by the first half of last year, it had 80 Mn registered users with a 200% growth in user base and a 4X increase in gameplays.
Gifting Partners
Amrutam
Founded in 2006 by Ashok Gupta and wife Chandrakanta Gupta, Amrutam aimed at providing consumers with good quality ayurvedic lifestyle and healthcare products. The business saw a revamp in 2016 when due to a huge financial crisis, the Gupta children, Agnim and Stuti, joined the business. Currently, the startup has more than 100 products across categories, such as hair, skin, and health and over 1K recipes approved by the Ministry of AYUSH.
MensXP 
Owned by Times Internet, a division of the Times Group, MensXP is a lifestyle brand for men. Founded by brothers Ankur and Angad Bhatia in 2009, the startup claims to receive over 15 Mn hits a month.
Nua
Founded in 2017 by Ravi Ramachandran, Nua provides customers with sanitary pads and other healthcare goods delivered to their doorstep at a frequency of their choosing.Furthermore, by using its community and clients of over 4 Lakh women, the firm is attempting to break the stigma and misconceptions around menstruation. It claims to have grown its membership base by 87x, since June 2020.
SkinKraft
Founded and conceptualised by Chaitanya Nallan, Veerendra Shivhare, and Sangram Simha in 2017, SkinKraft is a startup providing customers with customised skincare online since mid-2018. Despite the pandemic ruling the market in 2020, in August that year, this Hyderabad-based startup ventured into the men’s grooming market as well.
Currently, the startup boasts of more than 1 Lakh orders a month — 30% of which are repeat purchases — with an average ticket price of INR 800- 1,000.
Tearaja
Manish Jain and his wife Poonam Jain founded Tearaja in 2015 as a spin-off from their family’s legacy business, Jain Tea Co. Manish explained that the move was a result of the duo realising the need to digitise and tap into the digital-savvy Indian customers. This also helped the startup into the boom in the ecommerce industry after the funding spree in 2014 and 2015.
Vedix
Vedix, a brand under the same banner as SkinKraft, was introduced in 2017 by IncNut Digital. With the launch of Vedix, the goal was to bring in a global trend of ayurvedic customised beauty products. The company offers custom haircare, skincare, and wellness routines based on each person’s unique physical traits, as determined by their doshas.
