Love Triangle

Coffee Culture, Shipping Trouble, Broadway

Hi Surgies 👋 (and a special welcome to the 358 folks who joined the newsletter this week),

Coffee is flavor of the season in D2C land. In a nation where chai has been synonymous with breaks, coffee is a new contender making waves. Once considered a niche indulgence, coffee is rapidly becoming the drink of choice for the growing group of urban millennials and Gen Z trendsetters. Buoyed by the fact that India is consistently among the top 10 coffee producing countries in the world and international chains also vying for space in the country. India’s coffee market is projected to soar to a staggering $1.23 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 9.87% 2024 and 2032.

🗞️Marketplace Buzz

• Quick Commerce for X. The early success of quick commerce in India, driven by Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto, has inspired new business models in food, fashion and pharmacy segments. A change in consumer preferences is spurring the development of new models. Some early-stage companies are combining a retail footprint with fast deliveries, whereas others are focusing on particular product categories. There are also ventures attempting to improve supply chains and speed up shipping.

  • Rapid food-delivery startup Swish, which is barely a month old, has raised about $2 million from Accel

  • Zippee enables same-day deliveries for e-commerce brands through its 120+ dark stores across India. The company is in the market to raise its next round.

  • Blip Fashion and Slikk, are attempting the relatively longer 60-minute format in fashion.

  • Dava Ninja is helping pharmacies digitise their operations and bring medicines to doorsteps in 60 minutes.

    More on what existing ecomm players and new entrants are doing in the quick commerce space here.

• D2C Offline: With omnichannel coming up in every D2C brand’s strategy deck, there couldn’t have been a better time for Broadway to launch. Founded in March 2023 by Vivek Biyani, Broadway aims to ease the omnichannel transition of D2C brands via its super stores. The experiential shopping experience includes in-house live events and a “Broadway Studio”, where influencers can come in and promote merchandise. To start with, Broadway is launching with 115 brands, but new brands will be added on a daily basis.

• A Love Triangle between the marketplaces, sellers and regulator: With the regulator stepping up the ante against marketplaces, in a recent turn of events, three sellers of Flipkart have sued the Competition Commission of India (CCI) with regards to the ongoing probe going on by the watchdog against Amazon and Flipkart. The probe, which started in 2020, claims that both the e-commerce giants Flipkart and Amazon practiced anti-competitive practices such as giving preference to select sellers, treating ordinary sellers as mere data bases, and more. 

  

  Meanwhile,The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has urged the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to suspend the business operations of Amazon, Flipkart, and other related companies, citing violations of India's FDI policy. Praveen Khandelwal (CAIT's Secretary General Emeritus and Lok Sabha MP) highlighted the closure of 150,000 shops due to e-commerce expansion and called for an e-commerce policy and an Ombudsman for the sector.

• Foot Locker will exclusively sell online on Nykaa Fashion and Nykaa Man. The New York-based footwear retailer Foot Locker has partnered with Metro Brands and Nykaa to enter India market with an omnichannel approach

🍕D2C Snippets

• Sleeping Money: Wakefit enters the Rs 1,000 crore revenue club by clocking Rs 1,017 crore for financial year 2024 (FY24), a 24% year-on-year increase. The firm has expanded into home decor, lighting, furnishings, and more, to complement its existing sleep and furniture categories. It has ramped up its portfolio to over 100 categories and 6,000 SKUs (whoa!)

• Snack brand Troo Good raises Rs 72 Cr. Founded in 2018 by Raju Bhupati, Troo Good is a Hyderabad-based company that sells millet-based snacks, including chikkis, protein bars, and nutri bars. The company claims to sell over 2 million millet chikkis and other millet snacks every day.

• Not So Ordinary Beauty: Minimalist continues to be one of the strongest stories, and the fastest-growing D2C brands in India. The company’s revenue from operations surged to Rs 347 crore in FY24, up from Rs 184 crore in FY23. Founded by serial entrepreneurs Mohit and Rahul Yadav, Minimalist is a skin and hair care brand offering products such as serums, toners, and moisturizers.

• Curefoods, the cloud kitchen company which operates brands like EatFit, Yumlane, Aligarh House Biryani, Masalabox, and CakeZone has raised Rs 80 crore. The company has over 150 cloud kitchens across 15 cities.

  

  Curefoods has emerged as the second largest player in the cloud kitchen after Reebel Foods. Curefoods reported Rs 384 crore in revenue in FY23 while its FY24 numbers are yet to come. Rebel Foods’s operating revenue reached Rs 1,420 crore in FY24.

• Glitterati: Omnichannel jewelry startup Giva has raised Rs 100 crore. Giva, which initially launched as an affordable jewelry brand, has since expanded its offerings to include gold jewelry and lab-grown diamonds. In addition to its website and app, the Ishendra Agarwal-led company now operates around 110 physical stores across the country.

📢Power Talk

“The mass hiring by major marketplaces is leading to a shortage of available manpower and driving up labour costs, with these industry giants offering a 25-35% salary increase—rates that 3PLs cannot match,” Ajay Rao, CEO & Founder, Emiza.

📚Reads and Recommendations

• Taste is the new weapon. In a world of scarcity, we treasure tools. In a world of abundance, we treasure taste. Whether expressed via product design, brand, or user experience, taste now defines how a product is perceived and felt, as well as how it is adopted

• Getting your Instagram engagement metrics right

• Peak Human: Have we reached the point where AI systems can outthink the majority of individual humans. Here are the results.

• Shipping Trouble: A historic strike is underway at U.S. ports — and the impact on global supply chains could be huge

• Who wants an Iron Man-ish exoskeleton? Looks like a ton of folks. Robotic exoskeletons or wearable robots is a $2.4B market.

  

That’s all for this week! Bye!

Stay tuned for more.

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