Huddle Ventures

As coveted and mythologized as Diamonds are in India, consumer demands around it are changing. We’re excited to back True Diamond, a lab-grown diamond company creating high-premium jewellery for the emerging Indian consumer. Read more about our thesis here: https://lnkd.in/gyvbxNcG Meet the Founders: Darayus Mehta Parin Shah Visit True Diamond: https://truediamond.in/

We are pleased to announce the annual Business Model Competition Empresario 2024-25 in partnership with Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur. Empresario offers a platform to showcase and validate innovative business ideas while competing with top teams worldwide. Participants can benefit from expert mentorship, startup services, and a prize pool of INR 1 Crore+. To register, visit https://lnkd.in/gnzd_468 To visit their website, visit https://lnkd.in/fp8yhY9 Regular Registration Deadline: 22nd December 2024.

Bold Care is changing the narrative when it comes to access to sexual wellness in India. In a largely taboo space, it has found it’s fit, both in product and in marketing. Read more about Bold Care through The Ken’s coverage below. Visit Bold Care: https://boldcare.in/

At Huddle Ventures, we’ve been closely tracking the lab-grown diamond (LGD) category, confident that it will carve its own niche in India’s jewelry market, both in terms of price points and access — bridging the gap between natural diamonds and lower priced alternatives. This is a space ripe for growth, but scaling requires more than just opportunity. Building trust, designing an exceptional customer journey, and establishing a strong retail presence — both online and offline — are key. Parin and Darayus at True Diamond bring a complementary mix of strategic thinking and creative vision to the table. Their customer-first approach and thoughtful execution have already earned promising early feedback, and we’re excited to support them as they scale True Diamond into a leading brand in this evolving segment. Seed Round Announcement: https://lnkd.in/gQ7wkmUr Huddle Ventures | Sanil | Sarthak | Rishiraj

Excited to bring True Diamond to our Huddle! India’s history with diamonds is one of the oldest, and until the 18th century, India was the only source of diamonds for the world. Today, diamonds have come to represent love, fondness, and style - especially the latter amongst Millennial and GenZ couples. True Diamond is building India’s most premium lab-grown diamond brand, creating ethically crafted and responsibly beautiful products. It is uniquely positioned as the go-to brand in this segment. Read more about our thesis: https://lnkd.in/gVgwyMZY Read more about the fundraise: https://lnkd.in/g8gvFjkD Meet the founders: Parin Shah | Darayus Mehta Sanil Sachar | Ishaan Khosla | Rishiraj Kalita | Huddle Ventures

We're thrilled to announce backing Parin Shah and Darayus Mehta as they set out to further accelerate the True Diamond brand. True Diamond has focussed on three key pillars, garnering incredible customer love by displaying exceptional product quality, superior design, and meticulous customer service. All these early indications displayed Parin, Darayus and the team's superior execution capability, which we are proud to support in this growth journey. At Huddle Ventures, consumer brands focusing on the mentioned three key pillars fall in a different league than others, and we are delighted to be a part of this. From getting to know them through Ashutosh Valani earlier this year who spoke highly about the founders passion and unwavering focus to experiencing them through the lens of a customer and now a backer, we're excited for the next set of goals the team has set. Ishaan Khosla | Sarthak Rastogi | Rishiraj Kalita | Titan Capital | Kunal Bahl | Rohit Bansal | Zeropearl | Bipin Shah | Abhishek Goyal | Ashutosh Valani ETRetail - https://lnkd.in/g49Y7j2C

Last week, we hosted our second session under the Huddle Ventures x Amazon Web Services (AWS) roundtable series, titled "Distribution channels for emerging consumer brands". The panel, consisting of Kriti Gupta, Siddharth Agarwal, Yash Dholakia, Gaurav Khatri, Tarun Sundaram, Vinay Kumar, and Ayush Bansal, deliberated on the 0 to 1 journey of emerging consumer brands. Here's a few key takeaways: • 0 to 1 Journey in consumer is subjective. At Huddle, we roughly define it up to ARR of INR 30 Crores, but this heavily varies across categories - like F&B, Fashion & Apparel, Jewellery, Beauty & Personal Care, etc.  • Capturing the first 1000 customers requires mastering 3 critical aspects:  1. Customer Engagement: Creating a consistent approach to the first 1000 customers creates long term brand loyalty, one that reduces load on performance marketing in the future. 2. Category Identification: Identifying the gaps in the category are critical. It allows the first set of users to differentiate how you’re different from legacy or existing incumbents.   3. Channel Mastery: Largely refers to online platforms or D2C/Website. Mastery of channel is important before diversifying further. Quick commerce may be an exception since online-real estate is getting pricier on those platforms.  • Product diversification and Channel diversification go hand-in-hand. Typically, the battle for going offline requires a wide variety of product diversification and SKUs. Channel diversification should not necessarily be seen as a factor of exhausting current channels. Important to note that marketplaces haven’t solved for a lot of categories yet - so choose wisely.  • Offline is not as easy as it seems. Few examples of 0 to 1 journeys exist today through Offline only, and hence, offline is a 1+ journey, better yet, ARR 80-100 Crores. For example, Indian fashion & apparel today has enough depth for brands to do INR 100 Crores online first. EBOs are tough, MBOs are tougher. While LiteStore is solving for emerging brands to go offline, going offline is complicated: Lease tenure, location sourcing, working capital management, offline marketing, Interiors, etc  • Quick commerce is redefining consumption as we speak. It almost feels like a disadvantage to not utilize quick commerce - be it a young brand or legacy incumbent. + More! We'll make the extended discussion notes available soon. Sanil Sachar Ishaan Khosla Rishiraj Kalita

Earlier this week, we hosted another power-packed roundtable with Huddle Ventures x Amazon Web Services (AWS). The focus? Brainstorming on the distribution playbook for 0-to-1 brands (<INR 30 Cr ARR), spanning online channels like D2C, marketplaces, quick commerce, and offline formats like EBOs, MBOs, and kiosks. It was great to have a tight group of stellar consumer founders and investors join us — Gaurav (Noise), Ayush (Liberty Shoes Ltd.), Tarun (LiteStore), Siddharth (Z47), Kriti (Peak XV Partners) and Yash (Sauce.vc). 🙌🏼 Sharing a few interesting highlights: • Building a brand boils down to four pillars: customer segmentation (mass vs premium), category nature (planned vs impulse), founder DNA (skills, network, and expertise), and distribution strategy (online, offline, omni-channel). Nailing three of these often determines the fourth. • Founder DNA drives distribution decisions to a large extent at 0 to 1. Offline expansion demands unique networks and execution capabilities, making it a tougher path for many. Online-first is often the smarter play for early-stage brands, though categories like jewelry and furniture naturally lean offline or omni-channel due to customer buying behaviour. • In hyper-competitive categories like fashion, BPC, and consumer electronics, in most cases it’s critical to focus online until reaching INR 3-8 Cr MRR. This validates your brand’s pull before stepping into offline. When you do, go in with a clear, scalable plan — not as an experiment. • Offline isn’t as simple as it seems. While players like LiteStore are easing the path for some brands, EBO investments typically make sense only after INR 80-100 Cr ARR traction. MBOs are even tougher, with access and unit economics working only for high-margin, high-demand brands. • Timing is everything when expanding channels. Key factors include revenue growth plateaus in existing channels, capital available for scaling, category trends on marketplaces (coupled with category share targets for your brand), brand recall, distributor interest, and opportunistic timing (platform driven like QComm or competitor led). • Quick commerce is reshaping consumption habits in a big way. What began as a “why not” convenience is rapidly evolving into habit-driven purchasing, causing a significant shift in consumer behavior. Brands must recognize this early and establish a foothold to capture their category (sooner rather than later). More to unpack — details to follow. Disclaimer: these views are of course generalized and not applicable to every category/brand. Huddle Ventures | Sanil | Sarthak | Rishiraj Amazon Web Services (AWS) | Vinay

For any consumer and digital first venture starting up or scaling up, this is could the the most apt playbook for your team and you! Check this out for key insights and a breakdown of tools that’ll be extremely useful as you look to accelerate your brands growth. At Huddle Ventures having backed several consumer facing journey’s we have noticed certain play books that work out when timed and executed correctly. Several takeaways from this one for each of us to learn from! We’re glad to have been associated and contributed towards this playbook led by the brilliantly supportive Meta team, alongside some incredible peers of ours - Fireside Ventures | Sauce.vc | DSG Consumer Partners | Titan Capital | Whiteboard Capital Meta Guidebook for Early Stage Digital Native Brands - https://2ly.link/20ZNx Ishaan Khosla | Sarthak Rastogi | Rishiraj Kalita | Gaurav Jeet Singh | Karan Jindal

Turns out, Mondays aren’t so blue when Forbes is shining its spotlight on you! 🌟 We’re thrilled to share that Swageazy has been recognized as one of the Select 200 companies with Global Business Potential by Forbes India & D Globalist. - DGEMS 2024.🏆 As part of this prestigious cohort, our founders, Sameer Wahie and Sneh Setu, have been honored as 'eXtrepreneurs'—visionary leaders shaping solutions for the world. With this recognition, we’re excited to broaden our horizons, build global connections, and make a mark in international markets. Here’s to chasing bold ideas, achieving new milestones, and conquering beyond borders.🚀 #DGEMS2024 #Select200 #eXtrepreneur #BeyondBorders #GoGlobal