India’s leading D2C founders community, D2C Insider, is preparing to launch its new Category II venture capital fund, ConsumerX Ventures, according to sources familiar with the development. The fund will focus on backing early-stage D2C brands and enablers across India.
D2C Insider currently has a community of over 25,000 members across the country, including more than 20,000 brands, 7,500 enabler-founders, and over 2,500 investors.
Sources said ConsumerX Ventures is targeting a corpus of Rs 150 crore and plans to invest in nearly 25 early-stage startups operating in the direct-to-consumer ecosystem. The fund will primarily focus on pre-seed and seed-stage companies. It is also reportedly in advanced discussions with a large consumer group to join as an anchor investor.
The fund aims to acquire around 10–15% ownership in portfolio companies, while reserving nearly 40% of the corpus for follow-on investments in high-performing startups.
ConsumerX Ventures has already received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for its Category II Alternative Investment Fund (AIF). The company is expected to begin investor roadshows soon. Recently, the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA) also welcomed ConsumerX as its newest member.
According to sources, the average cheque size from the fund will range between Rs 3 crore and Rs 5 crore. The goal is to support startups in scaling towards Rs 100 crore in revenue while helping them move toward profitability and future Series A fundraising within an 18-month timeframe.
The fund plans to tap into emerging trends in India’s consumer market, including the growing influence of Gen Z and millennial consumers, the rise of quick commerce, and the expansion of ecommerce across Bharat-focused markets.
Abhishek Shah, Chief Evangelist at D2C Insider, will lead ConsumerX Ventures as Managing Partner. Chhavi Bhardwaj Kargaonkar, who currently manages D2C Insider’s Super Angels fund, will join as Partner at the new venture fund.
D2C Insider began as a community on a social networking platform in 2019 and has since built a strong network of founders, operators, and investors in the consumer startup ecosystem. Its founding members include well-known startup leaders such as Arjun Vaidya of V3 Ventures, Aditya Khanna of Assembly, Aman Gupta of boAt, Ghazal Alagh of Mamaearth, Hitesh Dhingra of The Man Company, Manish Chowdhary of WOW Skin Science, Tarun Sharma of mCaffeine, and Mohit Sadaani of The Moms Co.
The platform claims that nearly 60% of the D2C brands featured on Shark Tank India are part of its community network.
D2C Insider is also actively deploying capital through its Category I AIF Super Angels fund, which has a corpus of Rs 25 crore backed by more than 70 operator LPs.
So far, the Super Angels fund has invested in 16 startups including Basil, Pikndel, Samosa Party, Crest, Assembly, Futwork, The Solved Skin, Business On Bot, Snackible, Divine Hindu, Goat Life, Steam Pro, Dobra, Gubbachhi, Zoomies, and Filli & Me.
-By Shivani Solanki
