Nikhil Kamath’s Gruhas and Collective Artists Network launch INR 150 crore fund for consumer startups

Investment firm Gruhas, co-founded by Nikhil Kamath and Abhijeet Pai, has joined forces with Mumbai-based creative talent management. Firm Collective Artists Network to establish a new investment fund dedicated to supporting 10-15 consumer startups.

The newly launched Gruhas Collective Consumer Fund aims to allocate approximately Rs 150 crore for investments in sectors including fashion and lifestyle, health and wellness, coffee and beverages, personal care, and food services.

Alongside Gruhas and Collective Artists Network, the fund plans to secure capital from limited partners. Vijay Subramaniam, the founder and group CEO of Collective Artists Network, drew parallels with venture funds established by Hollywood actors like Ashton Kutcher, known for investments in tech giants such as Uber, Airbnb, and Snap. Subramaniam highlighted the fund’s focus on linking emerging brands with its network of managed artists and creators.

“How do you make India’s Silicon Valley and Hollywood speak to each other? There’s no organised bridge and the most sustainable way to build it is via capital and network. What can we collectively empower in the ecosystem,” Subramaniam said, adding that the new fund has already earmarked five investments.

Collective Artists Network oversees prominent Bollywood actors. Including Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh, Hrithik Roshan, and Shraddha Kapoor, along with numerous social media influencers and cricketers. In the newly established fund, Kamath and Subramaniam will serve as general partners.

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“For a brand which is early, in its infancy, when they will look at making their capital efficient on the marketing side, they really cannot afford big scale media buying, or big scale communication partners. What we like to do is to get in early and power those brands with our entire creator network, to augment their influencer marketing, intellectual property (IP) in a much more scalable way,” Subramaniam said, adding that the fund would look at startups clocking Rs 50 lakh to Rs 2 crore in monthly recurring revenues.

Addressing the current surge in investments within the consumer space, Kamath noted that due to heightened cost of capital domestically. There are now more opportunities available at reasonable valuations compared to a few years ago.

“We saw this in China… When they went through $5,000 gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, consumption shot up. So, we are buying into the larger India story and are betting that India will get there at some point of time,” Kamath said.

Gruhas specializes in early-stage and debt investments across various sectors, including proptech, clean tech, and the consumer sector. The firm has provided support to startups like Licious, Mainstreet Marketplace, Printo, and Hatti Kaapi in the consumer space.