D2C brand Zouk raises $3 million led by Stellaris Venture Partners

Direct-to-commerce (D2C) fashion brand Zouk said it has raised $3 million led by Stellaris Venture Partners and saw participation from Sharrp Ventures, JJ Family Office, Deutsche Bank India CEO Dilip Khandelwal, Atomberg founder Manoj Meena and founders of Sugar Cosmetics Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee.

Zouk operates in the bags, wallets and footwear categories and it plans to invest the funds to promote its brand, expand its collections, hire more people, strengthen its supply chain, and open offline stores.

The startup said that it plans to open five brand outlets this year. It already has a presence in over 50 retail touchpoints.


Zouk last raised a $1.5 million funding round which was again led by Stellaris Venture Partners.

The company is known for making Peta-approved bags and other products using “vegan leather”. The startup claims to have grown 10x since its last funding round.

“The next 18 months are going to see some exciting things from our side,” said cofounder Disha Singh. “We are rapidly expanding our collection on the bags and footwear side, to offer a wider collection of Proudly Indian products. Our recent launches of Backpacks, Baguettes and Clutches have been a big hit.”

The deal comes at a time when the lack of funding in the startup space has led to distres sales in the D2C space. Goat Brand Labs, backed by Flipkart Ventures and Tiger Global, acquired Chumbak, along with other D2C brands in January in a fire sale.

Traditional brick-and-mortar companies like Unilever, Aditya Birla Group and ITC have also acquired multiple D2C brands like Oziva, Wellbeing Nutrition, Yoga Bar, and Bewakoof among others.

“We have been impressed with Zouk’s capital-efficient growth. We thus decided to double down on our investment,” said Rahul Chowdhri, Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners. “With the expansion in footwear, the upcoming offline foray and the brand-building initiatives planned, we are excited with what’s in store from Zouk.”