Thrasio Backer Benevolent Capital Invests In D2C Startup Wellcurve

Thrasio-Backed Investors Tommy Rosen and Benevolent Capital Invests In D2C Startup Wellcurve

SUMMARY

The startup has witnessed a growth of 500% in the last 12 months with an annual recurring GMV of INR 17 Cr, as claimed by Wellcurve

Wellcurve aims to add 50 new D2C online health and nutrition brands within 3 to 6 months, along with launching its private label

In 2021, the online nutrition products platform raised $600K in a seed round led by nine Harvard alumni as a part of Harvard’s President Management Programme

Delhi-based D2C startup Wellcurve has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed investment round led by Benevolent Capital with participation from Tommy Rosen.

Wellcurve is an integrated ecommerce platform that curates leading brands, products, and information related to a healthy lifestyle. It plans to utilise the funds to expand the health experts network on its platform and augment the technology to further personalise user experience.

The funding round was led by Benevolent Capital, one of the leading investors in Thrasio, with participation from angel investor Tommy Rosen, one of the investors in Thrive Market, America’s biggest organic food ecommerce platform.

Founded in 2019 by Nikhil Mehra, Wellcurve currently offers more than 1,500 varieties of handpicked and curated nutritional products online from leading brands, backed with fast delivery to the doorstep.

“With a curated set of brands, we aim to switch regular pantry products of a household to healthy food alternatives. The fresh investment will help us to get closer to our mission of becoming the market leader in the segment and create an ecosystem to help people live healthily by leveraging our network of health experts and expand in the D2C space by collaborating with new brands to further accelerate customer acquisition,” said Nikhil Mehra, founder and CEO, Wellcurve.

The startup enables its customers to make an informed choice and make healthier eating affordable for all. It integrates content and commerce, providing users an ecosystem to discover information, shop for healthier food alternatives, find healthy recipes and engage with health experts, nutritionists, fitness enthusiasts, and home chefs, according to Wellcurve.

“Benevolent Capital is thrilled to be an investor in Wellcurve. We view Wellcurve’s potential and business model as quite similar to our investments in Thrasio and Carbon6, which is why Wellcurve resonated with us. We had been seeking an opportunity to invest in India and believe that we have found the best opportunity possible that is complementary and additive to our global portfolio of brands,” said Brett, cofounder, Benevolent Capital.

Meanwhile, ‘Thrasio model’ is the business format named after the (Thrasio) company’s signature modus operandi. It has become immensely popular in India. Mensa, UpScalio, Globalbees, 10Club are a few successful similar format ventures in India. For example, unicorn Mensa has recently made many acquisitions including gardening startup TrustBasket, aromatherapy D2C brand Florona, leather brand Estalon, among others.

Last year in November, Bengaluru-based ecommerce player 10club acquired three gardening startups namely Kraftseeds, Gate Garden and Kriti Kalash.

Moreover, the US-based rollup ecommerce pioneer has also entered India with INR 3,750 Cr ($500 Mn) commitment to acquire promising digital-first brands in the country. D2C consumer durables brand Lifelong is the first startup to be acquired by Thrasio.