Top 10 D2C brands of India

With the pandemic changing the pace of enterprises and consumer approach, along with the rise of e-commerce, several start-ups and D2C companies have started popping up in the Indian business ecosystem.

The D2C model or the Direct-to-consumer approach allows the brands to acquire profits along with higher popularity and visibility in the market. Brands across the globe are shifting towards the D2C model, removing the middlemen. More than 800 new-age brands from India have gone Direct-to-consumer.

Brands like Wow Skin Science, Sugar Cosmetics, Mamaearth, etc. have challenged well-established brands such as the Himalayas, ITC and HUL.

The D2C brands from all sectors including lifestyle, fashion and cosmetics, FMCG and electronics experienced advancements in various aspects. We have curated a list of the top 10 D2C brands of India that had the greatest impact on the market.

Here are the D2C brands we are going to cover in this article:

Mamaearth

When Ghazal and Varun Alagh were expecting their baby, they wanted to do everything to keep the baby safe. They searched for products they could use to pamper their bundle of joy, but no product in the market matched the safety standards.

This experience drove them to create a brand by a parent for a parent.

The company started with only 6 products but has now expanded to over 100 SKUs. During the lockdown, they launched 12 new products with ingredients Vitamin C and Bhring Amla.

The company’s products are being sold in 40 towns and over 2000 stores across India. Mamaearth made its appearances all over the e-commerce websites such as Amazon, Flipkart, Firstcry and Nykaa. Around 90% of its sales come from these platforms.

In 4 years, it became Asia’s first brand to get the MadeSafe certification for its toxin-free products. Within 5 years it became one of the E-commerce Unicorns of India with a valuation of 1.1 billion dollars as of March 2022.

Sugar Cosmetics

Founded in 2015 by Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee, Sugar Cosmetics is one of the fastest-growing makeup and beauty start-ups in India. It mainly targets Indian Women between the age of 18-25. The brand’s products last longer in all weather conditions and are compatible with Indian skin tones.

Its products are usually available at Lifestyle, Health and Glow, NewU, Nykaa and Shoppers Stop. The brand has carved a niche in the Rs. 600 - 800 price segment. While their lip products account for about 60% of their total sales, the rest comes from their face and eye category, the star product being the long-stay Kohl Kajal.

Sugar cosmetics reported a 21.6% rise in revenue in FY21, as compared to 2020. Moneycontrol has reported that it currently has an annualised revenue of Rs 320-350 crore. It has recently raised $50 million in Series D fundraise led by the Asia fund of L Catterton, valuing the company at $500 million. Sugar said it is trying to scale up its physical presence to 40,000 retail stores in over 550 cities in the next 24 - 36 months.

Wow Skin Science

Arvind Sokke, Ashwin Sokke, Manish Chowdhary and Karan Chowdhary started off with a dream of making it big in the skincare and lifestyle industry. Founded in 2014, the company managed to build a business via e-commerce and a small offline presence.

It sells over 250 personal care and wellness products through its own website and platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa and Purplle. The brand’s most popular product was its Apple Cider Vinegar Range. Wow sold the 200 ml shampoo bottle at Rs 399 while the competitors were charging about Rs 1,299 for the same product.
The company’s marketing strategy revolves around people’s interests by educating them about their innovative products via videos and influencer marketing. The company has clocked a revenue of nearly Rs 500 crores and expects to reach Rs 800 crores by the next fiscal year.

At present, Wow Skin Science is available in about 15,000 stores. In the next couple of months, this D2C brand aims at bringing interesting health and beauty offerings, focusing on GenZ and Millennials.

BoAt

Founded in 2016 by Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta, BoAt has positioned itself as a lifestyle brand that deals in fashionable consumer electronics. The aim was to affordable, durable and fashionable audio products and accessories for Millennials.
BoAt’s products are available on every e-commerce platform like Amazon and Flipkart and offline stores like Croma. The company sells over 10,000 products each day and serves about 20 million users in India.

One of India’s e-commerce Soonicorns, BoAt has raised total funding of $116.3 million, notable investors being Qualcomm Ventures, InnoVen Capital and Warburg Pincus.

Recently, it filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of up to Rs 2,000 crores with the market regulator SEBI. In its IPO this year, BoAt is expected to seek a valuation of $1.5-2million.

Licious

Founded in 2012 by Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura, Licious is a distinct meat and seafood D2C brand. The company runs on a farm-to-fork model and provides its customers with the highest quality meat and seafood.

Spread across 17 cities, the company’s annual run rate was more than Rs 1,000 crores. Licious has delivered to more than 2 million customers, 90% being repeat customers. The company has been a torchbearer for the food-tech D2C industry, being the first in the sector to pledge ESG (environmental, societal and governance) compliance.

Licious became India’s 29th Unicorn in 2021 after raising a Series G funding of $52 million from IIFL AMC’s tech fund and Avendus FLF. And in March 2022 they raised their Series F2 funding of $150 million. The company is now valued at about $1 billion.

Country Delight

Founded in 2015, Country Delight delivers dairy, fruits and vegetables to the doorstep of the customer. It is uniquely positioned to capture the evolving consumer preference for natural, minimally processed and healthier food choices.

In the last three years, the company has grown about 10 times, served over 1.5 million customers and fulfilled around 3 million orders per month.

Country delight engages with farmers, paying a premium for their produce. It partners with low-income entrepreneurs who work part-time for delivery fulfilment. Consumers can set their daily/ alternate day subscription plans on the mobile app as per their requirements.

Country Delight has recently raised $108 million in a Series D funding round led by Venturi Partners and Temasek, raising the brand’s total financing to $147 million.

Melorra

The first-ever lightweight jewellery start-up, Melorra, was developed by Saroja Yaramilli. It’s a Bengaluru-based leading D2C brand that offers contemporary jewellery that can be worn daily from office outings to daily workwear.

Melorra delivers hallmarked gold jewellery to about 718 districts of India and more than 2,800 towns.

It is growing at 200% CAGR over the last few years and has recorded a revenue of over Rs 360 crore for the year ended March 2022. It has raised $16 million in a Series D funding round and the funds will be used to strengthen the brand marketing activities and establish more offline experience centres across the country.

Sleepy Owl

Best pals, Armaan Sood, Ashwajeet Singh and Ajay Thandi love a good coffee, but could never find a great one when needed. So, they decided to brew their own and box it in a to-go. The cold-brew coffee brand, Sleepy Owl caters to the demand for brewed and epicurean coffee across India.

Founded in 2016, the brand boasts a 75-product portfolio including cold brew packs, hot brew bags, ready-to-drink cold brew bottles and much more. The brand sources its coffee beans from Chikamagalur, Karnataka.

The company claims to have about 60,000 customers, fulfilling 800 orders per month. Sleepy Owl has raised a total of $9.56 million in funding over 4 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Nov 22, 2021, from a Series A round led by Rukam Capital, DSG Consumer Partners and 9 others. The company is valued at $35.1 million as of Nov 2021.

Sleepy Owl continues to innovate to define how India brews up to enjoy coffee as a product.

Wakefit

Founded in 2016 by Ankit Garg and Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, this Bengaluru-based start-up offers mattresses and other sleep-related products such as pillows and comforters.

Word of mouth has been the most effective tool in the growth of Wakefit. The company does its marketing on the importance of sound sleep and health. The brand went viral in 2020 for its Sleep internship Initiative, where individuals were awarded Rs 1 lakh for 9 hours of sleep for 100 nights.

Sequoia-backed Wakefit is one of India’s E-commerce Soonicorns and it earned Rs 636 crore revenue in FY21-22. After gaining a sizable market share the company aims to cross the Rs 1,000 crore revenue target set for FY23.

The company has launched retail stores in Bengaluru, New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Lucknow and plans to open a few more in smaller cities.

Wakefit has raised about $63 million dollars of funds till now with notable investors being Sequoia Capital, SIG and Verlinvest.

Lenskart

Founded in 2010 by Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi, Lenskart has transformed India’s unorganized eyewear industry. Starting as an online platform for contact lenses, the company expanded its product line to prescription and sunglasses as well.

Because of the lack of meddle-men, the company passes on the benefits of lower costs to its customers in the form of nearly 60% lower costs. Lenskart also offered its customers an online 3D facility before purchasing frames which helped customers use their trial images for better judgement.

The company recently announced tie-ups with leading online marketplaces including Nykaa, Myntra and Tata Cliq. The E-commerce Unicorn has raised $100 million in a Series-I round and it’s looking to close the current round with a $200-250 million corpus ahead of its planned IPO. The company’s valuation is expected to be $5 billion, almost double the valuation of $2.5 billion at which funds were raised.