Founded by Mumbai-based husband-wife duo Nimisha and Manav Dhanda, D’Moksha Homes is committed to spreading delight with responsible eco-conscious home fashion
Venture Catalysts, India’s first and largest integrated incubator and accelerator, has announced its investment in D’Moksha Homes, a direct-to-consumer environment-friendly home fashion brand focused on providing exquisite, handcrafted home linens using only the most sustainable fabrics like linen, hemp, and lyocell, amongst others.
The angel seed round of $575000 reflects an envious list of investors led Dr. Apoorva Sharma, co-founder of Venture Catalysts, The Chennai Angels, Karthik Bhat (Founder Force Ventures) along with some extremely reputed investors who are founders of leading D2C brands, partners in large VC firms, serial investors and leading corporate executives. This includes Varun Alagh (Founder- Mama Earth), Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta (Founders- BoAt), Bala Sarda (Founder- Vahdam Teas), Virendra Gupta (Founder- DailyHunt), Vivekananda Hallekere (Founder- Bounce), Kushal Khandwala (Serial investor and Director-KIFS Housing Finance Limited), Sanjay Behl (Ex-CEO – Raymond), C.K.Ranganathan (Founder – CavinKare), Satish Kumar Anavangot (Former India MD- Henkel), Badri Pillapakkam (Partner Omidyar Network), Kushal Agarwal (Partner- Lightrock ventures), Tejas Subramanian (Director Telama investments) among others.
Founded by Mumbai-based husband-wife duo Nimisha and Manav Dhanda, D’Moksha Homes is committed to spreading delight with responsible eco-conscious home fashion. It is a digital-first D2C brand that controls end-to-end supply chain process, which involves manufacturing, global export, international imports, international warehousing, consumer marketing and delivery & returns. This creates a highly effective and agile supply chain process. The brand was launched in the United States in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. Yet despite the business challenges, D’Moksha Homes has displayed extraordinary growth thereon and now intends to create depth in its product offerings, expand to other critical marketplaces in addition to its own domain.
Commenting on the infusion of funds, Manav Dhanda, Cofounder of D’Moksha Homes said, “With all industries pivoting rapidly to cater to the global megatrend of environmentally conscious consumers, the textile industry has done far too little for far too long. It does not help that the textile industry is amongst the world’s most polluting industries, surprisingly not too far behind oil. The dawning of this stark reality was enough for us to take a leap entirely outside our professional comfort zone. The industry in India has mostly focused on job work for international brands but we intend to hone India’s strength in textiles and artisans to build a ‘Global Indian Home Fashion Brand’ with an objective of continually driving our brand cause of contributing to India Girl Child Education from a portion of our sales proceeds. We are extremely humbled that several of the finest Indian founders, VC partners and investors have put faith in our endeavour. Personally, it gives us a greater sense of responsibility to make this dream an even more rapidly approaching reality. It is day 1 for us and that vigor shall not rest.”
Nimisha Dhanda Co-founder D’Moksha Homes added “With a career in banking and media we knew that we’re getting into an unknown territory. But with a strong brand purpose, we also knew that no matter what we create, each product will be ready for sale only when it makes us absolutely proud. To engrave our customer obsession in D’Moksha Homes genetic code, we gave the brand our son’s name, which for us is the greatest reminder to endlessly create absolute delight in our customers’ lives each time they engage with our brand. Our customers must love D’Moksha. We thank our Angels for further fueling our customer obsession and partnering with the greater purpose of the brand.
Sharing his insights, Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, President and Co-founder, Venture Catalysts, said, “The global home textile madeups market is worth $120 billion D’Moksha Homes has been successfully serving over 20000+ delighted customers across US, Canada and Mexico with 20% of them claiming repeat purchase. The brand has been generating profits within a few months of launch since October 2020 with almost 80% Gross Margins, which is commendable. Witnessing the growing awareness of synthetic fabrics’ harmful effects on the environment, D’Moksha Homes comes as a blessing in disguise. This funding will give them more firepower to scale their market presence globally and build an Indian brand for the world. We are also confident that they will create equal value for their customers as all as the investors on board.”
Satish kumar Anavangot, Former Managing Director, Henkel India and member of The Chennai Angels said, “As Deal Champion from The Chennai Angel’s (TCA), I am happy to get associated with D’ Moksha in this early seed round. Considering the business model is based on a natural eco-conscious home furnishing brand, the products have great potential not only in India but also across the world.”
Karthik Bhat, Founder of Force Ventures said “We at Force Ventures, are delighted to back Nimisha and Manav as they build a high quality and fast growing global aspirational brand at DMoksha, which combines a strong social conscience with best in class unit economics”
Chandran Krishnan, CEO of The Chennai Angels said, “Using eco-friendly products not only improves the quality of life but ensures good health and well-being of households and the planet. Among the many upcoming eco-friendly brands, D’Moksha stands out with cost effective, practical and stylish options for all-natural home décor. The Chennai Angels are happy to support their cause and believe that D’Moksha’s passionate team can immensely scale this business in India and around the globe.”
D’Moksha has yet another commendable feather in its hat. In Feb ’21 the brand was enlisted among the top 10 D2C brands chosen from India for the Amazon Global Selling Propel Accelerator Program in partnership with Start Up India. It was the youngest brand to feature (within 11 months of launch) in the list some most other brands ranging between 5-20 years.
Source: Business World
