In a bid to provide more growth opportunities to D2C (Direct-To-Consumers) companies, the Walmart-owned Flipkart has announced the launch of ‘Flipkart Boost’ that will offer emerging made-in-India brands end-to-end support covering planning, advertising, cataloging, logistics, quality control, and mentoring.
Through a service fee model, Flipkart Boost will shortlist brands based on clear-cut criteria and nurture them holistically.
How Flipkart Boost will work
The whole concept is one of lending a helping hand to enterprising brands that could do with some guiding from experts. Basically, selected brands will be able to leverage Flipkart’s expertise across domains.
The brands can apply directly on the Flipkart seller platform, of which 100 brands will be chosen for the programme this year.
Flipkart will select the brands through a ‘pitch day’, and the chosen ones will also have the opportunity to secure potential funding from a network of leading venture capital funds and active investors in the D2C space.
Among the participating investment partners are A91 Partners, DSG Consumer Partners, Fireside Ventures, Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India and Stellaris Venture Partners.
The brands chosen cover a diverse range of segments, including F&B, baby care, lifestyle, beauty and home improvement. The Flipkart Boost program will enable growth opportunities for the brands through insights into their performance and customer traction.
The programme is said to have been successfully piloted with several brands earlier this year.
Speaking about the launch, Ravi Iyer, Senior Vice President and Head, Corporate Development, Flipkart, said, “With the Flipkart Boost Programme, we aim to build and nurture the growing customer-focused businesses by providing them relevant mentoring that covers access to a network of investors, market intelligence, scalability programmes, and marketing engagements.”
The D2C sector in India is currently worth $44.6 billion and is expected to be worth $100 billion by 2025.