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https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/shopkirana-raises-38-million-led-by-info-edge-oman-india-sixth-sense-ventures/articleshow/89137672.cms Shopkirana raises $38 million led by Info Edge, Oman India, Sixth Sense Ventures Bengaluru: Business-to-business grocery startup Shopkirana said it has raised $38 million from Info Edge, Oman India joint investment fund, Sixth Sense Ventures and other investors. The round also saw participation from Trifecta, Incubate Fund, Akatsuki, Ajanta LLP, Gunosy Capital and others. ShopKirana works directly with brands and gives them a boost on distribution with market intelligence. It currently works with 50,000 kirana stores in eight cities across four states —Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Founded in 2015 in Indore, the company claims to be the first mover on selling groceries directly to retailers from brands. The sector is now rife with competition from big, well-funded companies such as Udaan, Jiomart, Flipkart, Amazon and Jumbotail. But ShopKirana's cofounder Sumit Ghorawat told ET that the company has perfected a model that can help it launch in a new city every 15 days. The company was founded by former executives from the consumer goods sector -- Deepak Dhanotiya, Sumit Ghorawat, and Tanutejas Saraswat . Ghorawat said that Shopkirana is the first company in the sector to break even operationally. “With the right product-market fit and considering the heavy adoption from kirana stores, legacy consumer goods brands and direct-to-consumer or D2C brands, we are super excited to take the business to a national scale," said Ghorawat. How is the company different from Udaan, Jiomart? Essentially, all the players have a common goal -- digitise the decades-old unorganised wholesale market and bypass middlemen. “We may be trying to do something similar but the way you are doing it is very different,” said Ghorwat. Right from its inception, the company has focused on selling only packaged FMCG goods such as detergents, hair oil, shampoo, cosmetics and biscuits, not getting into selling highly perishable goods like fresh fruits, vegetables and staples. Dabur, ITC, HUL, P&G are the partners. The company conducted a pilot in Mumbai and Indore first and later decided to focus on tier-2 cities such as Indore after realising that the market was more unorganised in smaller cities. “We became super focussed on tier-2 and for the first three years, we kept our head down and made sure we have strong product-market fit and unit economics. We are the first company to hit operational break-even in the segment.” Product-market fit is the degree to which a product satisfies strong market demand. The company follows a ‘solve first, scale later’ approach rather than the other way around, which the biggest players follow. “For the first three years we stuck with one city,” said Ghorawat. “We opened one store, ran it for a couple of years, made sure the recipe was standardised and the order taking was streamlined. Then scaling did not scare us. We had one solved unit in Indore and then replication from there was easy.” “There is no one big innovation that helps us stands out. From all the way from cataloguing, understanding of the market, how pricing is competitive, all the order experience for the retailer, what kind of suggestions machine learning is giving to them, what kind of cross-selling we are able to do.” What is in it for retailers and brands? Ghorawat said its digital platform, Direct, is “highly sticky” for both retailers and brands, and as a result, the company has been able to achieve a line item fill rate of 97.5%. That means for every 100 items the trader has demanded, the company has been able to deliver 97.5. For the rest of the industry, Ghorawat said, the average fill rate is 75-85%. The platform also generates heat maps and meaningful insights for brands. “Brands come to us for mass-market insights,'' he said.”Sitting here I can tell you which street of Indore you are likely to sell cream biscuits, which pincode in Jaipur people are going to buy smooth and silky shampoo over an anti-dandruff shampoo.” A market for many players Jumbotail has also followed a similar approach by developing a model in Bengaluru and scaling to more cities. “I don’t think there are too many similarities in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi -- be it the traffic congestion, density or distances,” said Ghorawat. "But most tier-2 towns are the same. If I have success in Indore I can replicate it 50-100 times across the country." Ghorawat said he is not too worried about competition as discounting and undercutting by the bigger players is barred by many brands. If one of the platforms sells to retailers at a lower price than the one stipulated by the .. “The market is an ocean,” he said. “There is no way one player can take the entire market. It is a $500 billion market. We are adding another $55-60 billion to FMCG and grocery. That is the size of pharma. Many players will survive.”

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/cons-products/fmcg/vedic-cosmeceuticals-raise-series-a-fund-from-sixth-sense-ventures-/articleshow/88302530.cms Vedic Cosmeceuticals raise Series A fund from Sixth Sense Ventures Vedic Cosmeceuticals, a private label manufacturer of personal care products raised Rs25 crore as Series A round of capital from Sixth Sense Ventures. The company manufactures personal care products for Indian cosmetic brands including Nykaa, Moms Co., Sirona and Arata with a fifth of their current production exported to Europe. “Vedic Cosmeceuticals has grown steadily in the last few years, with accelerated growth since 2017. With a plethora of beauty and skin care options available in the market, the challenge which D2C (Direct-to- consumer) brands face today are sourcing clean beauty products which are ethically produced," Mohit Goel, Founder Vedic Cosmeceuticals said. “We aim to utilize the raised funds to expand our outreach to newer markets and global clientele, and considerably scale up operations and take our R&D to the next level. Founded by Goel in 2004, Vedic Cosmeceuticals has grown from being a contract manufacturer for a single brand in 2004 to over 50 brands in 2021. The company said it plans to triple its monthly production capacity from 300 metric tonnes to 1000 metric tonnes. "With the emergence and proliferation of direct-to-consumer beauty and personal care brands, contract research and manufacturing in the sector becomes critical. We are extremely bullish on manufacturing in an environment wherein there will be a plethora of brands. Vedic is our vehicle to capture the tremendous growth that we envisage in the manufacture of beauty and personal care," said Nikhil Vora, Founder of Sixth Sense Ventures. Beauty and personal care industry in India is a $13 billion industry, within which the fastest growing trend is clean beauty and is expected to reach $2 billion by 2025.

https://www.vccircle.com/a91-partners-fireside-ventures-lead-30-mn-funding-in-bicycle-brand-niney-one Unbox Robotics raises Series A round from 3one4 Capital, Sixth Sense Ventures, others Pune-based supply chain robotics technology company Unbox Robotics has secured $7 million (around Rs 52 crore) in a Series A funding round led by 3one4 Capital, along with the participation of Sixth Sense Ventures and Redstart Labs (Info Edge), the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Unbox Robotics’ founders Pramod Ghadge, Shahid Memon and Chief Product Officer (CPO) Rohit Pitale, along with existing investors such as US-based venture capital (VC) firm SOSV, Arali Ventures, WEH Ventures, BEENEXT, Karthik Bhat’s Force Ventures, Dr Vijay Kedia, Director, Kedia Securities, Aditya Singh, Founding Principal Stride Ventures and Pavitar Singh, Chief Technology Officer, Sprinklr, also took part in the round, the statement said. Other investors who participated in the round include Rahul Chaudhary (Treebo Hotels), Nikhil Vora and Kathan Shah (Sixth Sense Ventures), and Veda VC. The company said it will be deploying the amount for its expansion across functions, fulfilling customer demand, research and development, and broadening to new geographies. "Since we launched our beta pilots with leading third-party logistics and e-commerce players in April 2021, we have already got orders from some of the leading e-commerce logistics companies. We are on our way to convert every other pilot or demo into a commercial contract,” said Pramod Ghadge, CEO and Co-Founder of Unbox Robotics. Founded in 2019 by Pramod Ghadge and Shahid Memon, Unbox Robotics specialises in robotics-based fulfilment and distribution technology for small to large e-commerce, retail and logistics enterprises, the statement said. The company said it has already onboarded e-commerce and logistics enterprises as early adopters through trials, and has filed intellectual property (IP) for its technology in India, the U.S. and the EU. The company claims that it enables small to large e-commerce, retail and logistics enterprises to deploy plug-and-play high-speed robotics, with the deployment time being less than a week. Earlier this month, market-bound logistics company Delhivery acquired California-based Transition Robotics Inc.

https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/wonderchef-raises-rs-150-crore-led-by-sixth-sense-ventures-godrej-family-office-11637061464422.html Wonderchef raises ₹150 crore led by Sixth Sense Ventures, Godrej family office Kitchen products brand Wonderchef Home Appliances sells branded kitchen appliances, cookware, bakeware, cooktops and chimneys. Wonderchef said the primary capital raised will be used for expanding the brand's online presence, deepening distribution network and enhancing branding initiatives.

https://www.vccircle.com/sixth-sense-ventures-invest-in-vc-backed-fashion-jewellery-startup Sixth Sense Ventures invests in VC-backed fashion jewellery startup Consumer-focused venture capital (VC) firm Sixth Sense Ventures has placed its latest bet on GIVA, a Bengaluru-based fashion jewellery...  

hhttps://www.livemint.com/companies/start-ups/sixth-sense-ventures-invests-7-million-in-dogsee-chew-11635936534167.html Sixth Sense Ventures invests $7 million in Dogsee Chew Founded by husband-wife duo Bhupendra Khanal and Sneh Sharma, Dogsee Chew produces vegetarian hard cheese dog chews. According to the company, it will use the company footprint in India and other developed markets, while accelerating new product development and manufacturing.  

https://www.vccircle.com/sixth-sense-ventures-backs-healthy-beverage-brand-storia Sixth Sense Ventures backs healthy beverage brand Storia Consumer focused venture capital firm Sixth Sense Ventures has invested in healthy beverage and snack startup Storia Foods and Beverages Pvt Ltd in its new bet from its third fund. Storia will use the fresh capital to boost its marketing efforts and distribution channels, according to a statement. It did not disclose the financial details of the transaction. Storia was founded in 2016 by Vishal Shah, who previously worked with corporates such as Novigo America, Abbott and Piramal Healthcare. The rest of the startup's core team comes with a combined experience of over 70 years from major fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies such as Coca Cola, Unilever, and Parle, it said. Storia is essentially a ready-to-drink beverage brand with core focus on shakes while beverage whitener and coconut water also form a part of its product portfolio. The statement noted that the packaged beverage market is a $50 billion opportunity and is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12% as consumers transitions to a healthy lifestyle. "Storia, with their focus on shakes, is in a sweet spot to create strong brand salience as none of the incumbents (Mother Dairy, Amul, Cavin, etc.) focus on milkshakes as a core category thus the category has seen limited to no product/brand innovation," explained Nikhil Vora, founder and CEO, Sixth Sense Ventures. Sixth Sense was founded in 2014 by Vora, former managing director and co-head of research at IDFC Securities. He was also an early investor in Paytm parent One97 Communications Ltd and walked away with a 75-fold gain on the investment by selling his stake to Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Earlier this month, VCCircle reported that Sixth Sense Ventures is set to close its third fund at Rs 2,300-2,400 crore ($309-323 million), which is at least 60% higher than the initial target and one of the largest domestic fund-raise by any Indian venture capital fund. In July, Sixth Sense Ventures invested in plant-based meat company GoodDot Foods Pvt Ltd. Its investments in Veeba Foods, Soothe Healthcare (Paree), LEAP India, Fullife, and Eupheus Learning are some other examples of the firm’s successful bets over the years. Earlier this week, VCCircle reported that Sixth Sense Ventures is in talks to invest in dog food company Dogsee Chew.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/home-interior-solutions-startup-design-caf-bags-25-million-in-funding/articleshow/86356365.cms Home interior solutions startup Design Café bags $25 million in funding Home interior solutions startup Design Café has raised $25 million (Rs 166 crore) as part of its extended Series B round. The funding was led by existing investors WestBridge Capital and joined by Sixth Sense Ventures, the company said. Early investor Fireside Ventures also participated in the round along with a few family offices. The company said it will use the funding for expansion into newer cities. It plans to be present in the top 10 cities over the next 18 months. Founded in 2015 by Gita Ramanan and Shezan Bhojani, Design Café has a vertically integrated business model, with its own designers, workforce, and a factory in Bengaluru manufacturing all its products. It currently operates in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad, with new centres set to be launched in Chennai and Thane. “The company is also planning to open more experience centres in Bengaluru,” it said in a statement. “The funds will allow us to take our services and products to more markets, and invest further in technology and people,” chief executive Bhojani said. Design Café is nearing break even and its annual revenue run rate is around Rs 180 crore, it said. The company plans to grow its gross annual booking rate to Rs 600-Rs 700 crore over the next 24 months. A large part of this, the company said, will come from growth in the Home segment, which it believes can be a billion-dollar opportunity. “We believe that home interiors and improvement is a very large opportunity in India and the problem that Design Cafe addresses is a real consumer need today,” said Sandeep Singhal, cofounder and managing director, WestBridge Capital. Home improvement and design is a $20 billion industry which is completely fragmented and unorganised in India. “Profitability in this industry has always been a challenge, but Design Cafe’s increased focus on standardised modular furniture, vertically integrated manufacturing, and a full-stack tech platform, will enable the business to achieve economies of scale,” said Nikhil Vora, founder and CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures. "Home has now become the centre of work and family life and this is where every consumer is looking for the best options when it comes to doing up their dream homes, this is the edge that the founders have focused on. We are confident that the need for good homes is here to stay forever," said Kanwaljit Singh, managing director Fireside Ventures.

https://www.livemint.com/companies/start-ups/rage-coffee-raises-5-million-in-series-a-funding-from-sixth-sense-ventures-11629178800248.html Rage Coffee raises $5 million in Series A funding from Sixth Sense Ventures Rage Coffee products are retailed through their own website, and via 1000 offline touchpoints through a network of distributors. The brand is planning to expand its online presence and offline footprint pan-India. It will also use the capital proceeds for marketing and distribution purposes, scaling production, launching innovative new products and adding senior talent to its existing team.

https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/neemans-raises-20-crore-in-series-a-funding-led-by-sixth-sense-ventures-11628058823768.html Neeman's raises 20 crore in Series A funding led by Sixth Sense Ventures Founded in 2018, Neeman’s is a footwear startup that produces shoes made from Merino Wool, suitable for the Indian subcontinent. The company said it will utilize the funds for product development, launching its brand in international markets, expansion of categories, and for research and development.