D2C Lifestyle Brand Zouk Bags Funding From Stellaris Venture For Offline Foray

D2C lifestyle brand Zouk has raised $3 Mn in a strategic funding round led by existing investor Stellaris Venture Partners. 

The funding round also saw participation from existing investors Sharrp Ventures and Titan Capital, JJ Family Office, Deutsche Bank India CEO Dilip Khandelwal, Atomberg CEO and founder Manoj Meena, and Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee of Sugar Cosmetics.

Zouk will use the funding to invest more in branding and expand its product portfolio. It will also deploy the capital to fuel its offline foray and strengthen its supply chain. 

A part of the funding will also go towards increasing the headcount. Speaking to Inc42, cofounder Pradeep Krishnakumar said that the startup is looking to hire across the board – from leadership roles to marketing and sales team. 

“The next 18 months are going to see some exciting things from our side…We will further see our first set of brand outlets. We will also be building our brand awareness, having hit early product-market fit now. The biggest investment though will be on expanding our team and strengthening our supply chain,” said cofounder Disha Singh. 

Founded in 2016 by IIM Ahmedabad alumni and wife-husband duo of Singh and Krishnakumar, Zouk began with an investment of INR 20 Lakh. The startup claims to offer handcrafted and cruelty-free handbags, shoulder bags and laptop bags. It has also ventured into the footwear and wallets segments and also sells other accessories on its platform. 

It last raised $1.5 Mn as part of a pre-Series A funding round led by Stellaris in July 2021. Since then, Zouk claims to have grown 10X in terms of revenue. The startup also claims to have so far sold products to more than 4 Lakh customers. 

While around 95% of its revenue last year came from online sales, the remaining came from 50 offline retail outlets where it recently began selling products. Zouk expects to scale the contribution of offline sales to 15%-25% of the total revenue  in the long run.

Of the online sales, Krishnakumar said that 65% came from its own D2C channel, while the remaining 35% came from marketplaces. 

To mark its full-fledged foray into the offline domain and strengthen its distribution channels, the startup plans to open five new exclusive brand outlets in 2023.

“We still believe that kind of a major chunk of revenue would come from online, at least in this calendar year. But offline is something that we are building the base on to really make this an INR 1,000 Cr business in the next five years,” added the cofounder.

The fundraise comes at a time when the D2C space is witnessing a renewed interest from investors. On Wednesday, Ayurveda-based D2C startup Gynoveda announced raising $10 Mn in Series A funding from India Alternatives Fund and others. Prior to that, another D2C personal care brand The Ayurveda Co bagged INR 100 Cr in Series A funding round from Sixth Sense Ventures, and others.

In February, D2C meat and fish startup FreshToHome secured $104 Mn in a Series D funding round led by Amazon Sambhav Venture Fund. 

As per an Inc42 report, India was home to more than 50,000 D2C brands at the end of Q3 2022, with the D2C sector’s total addressable market opportunity estimated to hover around the $300 Bn mark by 2030.

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