Exclusive: D2C brand Nat Habit to raise $9 Mn in new round

Natural personal care D2C brand Nat Habit is set to close a new funding round led by new and existing investors, according to three people aware of the details of the discussion. This would be the first funding round for the company in 2023 and second in the last 18 months.

“Bertelsmann is in late-stage talks to lead a $8-9 million Series A round in Nat Habit,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “The terms of the deal are in the final leg of negotiation. If things remain on track, then the transaction is likely to materialize in less than a month.”

According to sources, Nat Habit will be valued at around Rs 300 crore ($35-36 million) in the potential round.

Founded in 2019, Nat Habit claims that its product portfolio in beauty and wellness categories are ayurvedic and has zero chemical and preservatives. The firm raised $4 million led by Fireside Ventures and existing backers in April 2022. Surge Ventures, Titan Capital, Whiteboard Capital and a host of angel investors including Neeraj Kakkar, Devendra Chawla, and Suhasini Sampath invested $2 million in its maiden financing round in 2021.

In June 2022, Bertelsmann India announced a $500 million fund to back new startups as well as follow-on investment in existing portfolios. The investment firm will fund Nat Habit from the same fund.

Queries sent to Nat Habit and Bertelsmann did not elicit any response. We’ll update the post in case they do.

Nat Habit is yet to file its audited financial statements for FY23 but it registered Rs 16.29 crore in revenue in FY22 with Rs 4.99 crore loss, data sourced from startup intelligence platform TheKredible shows.

Over the past year, funding across D2C brands has slowed down. According to TheKredible, startups in the D2C space scooped up $1.73 billion across 135 deals in 2021. This saw a minor decline in 2022 during which 132 startups raised $1.38 billion, whereas 101 startups have raised a little over $1 billion in 2023 so far.