Marketplace vs D2C: What Indian founders are actually choosing in 2026
Quick commerce rewrote the rules. The either/or debate is over — what Indian founders are navigating now is a five-channel sequencing problem, not a binary choice.
Startups
GoBoult crossed ₹762 crore in revenue — without taking a rupee of VC money
While boAt raised hundreds of crores and Noise chased market share, two brothers from Delhi built India's most profitable wearables brand without raising a single round.
Aurm Raises ₹42 Cr Series A for Private Bank Locker Infrastructure
India's bank locker waitlists stretch for years. Aurm is building the private vault infrastructure that sits inside your gated community instead — and Earth Fund and Sattva Ventures just backed the vision.
Mumbai’s Ubiqedge Raises ₹10 Cr Seed Round Led by Piper Serica for AIoT OS
India's industrial infrastructure runs on fragmented, mostly manual systems. Ubiqedge built the hardware and software stack to fix that from scratch — and Piper Serica just led its first institutional round.
HealthFab Raises ₹20 Crore to Take Reusable Period Products Mainstream
India's period care market is quietly shifting from disposable to reusable. HealthFab has been building at that frontier since 2019 — and Atomic Capital just bet ₹20 crore it can move the category into the mainstream.
Kolkata’s Kisah Raises ₹35.9 Crore Series A from Fireside Ventures — Rewriting Men’s Ethnic Wear
Built out of Kolkata, profitable at Series A stage, and growing 65% year-on-year — this men's ethnic wear brand is doing things the mainstream fashion playbook said weren't possible together.
Temasek Bets ₹482 Crore on Milky Mist Before Its IPO — Here’s Why That’s a Big Deal
The Erode-based dairy brand that sells no liquid milk just secured Singapore's sovereign wealth giant as a pre-IPO backer. The market debut is now a matter of timing, not if.
CHOSEN Raises $5 Million in Series A Led by Fireside Ventures, with Participation from L’Oréal
The Chennai-based dermo-cosmetic brand, founded by cosmetic dermatologist Dr Renita Rajan, has built a clinic-to-consumer model grounded in over 150,000 dermatologist consultations — and is now eyeing Latin America and East Asia.
HyugaLife Raises Rs 100 Crore Series A From IvyCap to Build India’s Most Trusted Nutrition Marketplace
Nutrition marketplace HyugaLife has raised Rs 100 crore in a Series A led by IvyCap Ventures, with plans to build a dark store network and push into offline retail for the first time.
Snabbit Raises $56 Million in Series D, Valued at $360 Million After Hitting 1 Million Monthly Jobs
Quick home services platform Snabbit has raised $56 million in a Series D led by Susquehanna VC, pushing its valuation to $360 million after crossing one million monthly jobs in March 2026.
Ex-Swiggy CTO Dale Vaz’s Trading App Sahi Raises $33 Million, Now Valued at $200 Million
Dale Vaz's Sahi has raised $33 million in a Series B led by Accel, valuing the year-old trading platform at $200 million — up from $60 million just nine months ago.
Bengaluru’s Ctruh Raises $2.5M Seed to Build Browser-Native 3D and XR Infrastructure
The round was led by Inflection Point Ventures and joins a growing wave of Indian deep-tech bets on spatial computing — a category the global XR market projects to exceed $346 billion in 2026.