Naturohabit Pvt Ltd, which owns the beauty and wellness brand Nat Habit and counts Peak XV Partners as an investor, has raised $10.2 million (Rs 85 crore) in a Series B funding round led by Bertelsmann India Investments.
New investors Amazon India Fund, Mirabilis Investment Trust and Sharrp Ventures as well as existing investor Fireside Ventures joined the round. Sharrp Ventures is the family office of Marico founder Harsh Mariwala.
The development comes a few months after VCCircle reported in August that e-commerce major Amazon planned to invest in Nat Habit through an India-focused fund.
The company said it will use about $2 million from the new round to facilitate exits for early-stage investors, providing returns of 4.5-5 times their initial investment over a four-year period. It didn’t name the investors.
Nat Habit will also use the fresh capital for offline expansion, product diversification, brand-building, research and development, and hiring talent.
Founded in 2019 by Swagatika Das and Gaurav Agarwal, Nat Habit last year raised $4 million in a Series A round led by Fireside. The New Delhi-based startup is a direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty and wellness brand that offers products like moisturizer, hair oil and facewash.
‘’Natural or ayurvedic care is not a trend for us; it is a lifestyle or habit we would like consumers to adopt for a safer and longer life. With the recent Series B funding, we aim to double down on our efforts to build a stronger community,” said Das.
Nat Habit claims to serve around 14 lakh customers, shipping 15,000 units per day and has 35 product lines. The startup has 230 people on its rolls and plans to increase it to 350-400 in the near term.
In FY22, the startup clocked Rs 16 crore in net sales and incurred a loss of Rs 5 crore, as per VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle.
In the beauty and personal care segment, homegrown brand Pilgrim secured $20 million in a Series B funding round that involved a mix of equity and debt capital in September 2023. The round was led by Temasek-backed venture capital firm Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India. Existing investors Fireside Ventures and Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office also doubled down on their bet.
In June last year, skincare and wellness brand Wow Skin Science raised Rs 375 crore from Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC.
Bertelsmann India is the strategic investment arm of Germany-headquartered media firm Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA. Last year, the firm launched a $500 million India-focused venture capital fund.
The firm, which has backed startups like Licious and Eruditus, led the $25 million Series D funding round of logistics marketplace LetsTransport in July.
