Sauce.vc

🌟 #Hiring for #SaucePortfolio 🌟 I am looking to connect with young and enthusiastic professionals to some of our early stage investments that are hiring across a number of roles. We’re looking to connect with folks for the following opportunities: Open Roles: 1️⃣ Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR): Someone who wants to build a business, and has a bias for action, rather than analysis 2️⃣ Creative & Content Whiz with a path to becoming Content & Creative Head in 12 months 3️⃣ 6-Month Business Internship: An incredible chance for aspiring professionals to get hands-on experience in a dynamic environment. 4️⃣ The Wild Card Role: If you feel that there is something that you want to build at an early stage company, but the role is not listed here - fill up the form with why its important, and why you are the person to do it. We would love to have a chat. How to Apply: To streamline the process, kindly fill out this form: https://lnkd.in/gcn3nHXb 📌 Important: Please avoid DMing or emailing, as we’ll only review applications submitted through the form. Let’s build something incredible together. 🚀

We had so much fun during the creation of this brand! Yash Dholakia Zoeb Ali Khan

The kind of Rockit 🚀🚀🚀 launches we want to hear about!

We hosted a closed door learning session for select Fund 2 and Fund 3 founders. A select group for a focused, interactive dialogue. The session was run by Yogesh Kabra, founder of XYXX Apparels. He outlined key strategies for building a successful D2C brand and emphasized on the importance of understanding the target audience and tailoring content to resonate with their preferences. He highlighted the role of social media in driving brand awareness and engagement, emphasizing the need for consistent and relatable content. Additionally, the session delved into the distinction of pricing strategy, distribution channels, and influencer marketing. XYXX, a disruptive men's innerwear brand, has been experiencing rapid growth and popularity in the Indian market. They launched a new campaign titled "Undie Pendence" featuring brand ambassador and investor KL Rahul and are actively expanding its retail presence, both online and offline, with plans to open new stores and increase its general trade reach. This was the second session of Pay It Forward series where scaled founders from Sauce portfolio companies and ecosystem share practical experiences and learnings to help the next generation of founders succeed better and faster. Akriti Gupta, Dhwanit, Riddhi Sharma, Ripul Sharma, Manu Chandra,Padma Milhotra, Jollee, Kreo, BabyOrgano

Attention consumer brands! Level up with this game-changing playbook! 🚀 We're thrilled to announce the launch of a brand new playbook created by Meta, and contributed to by Sauce.vc along with some leading VCs - Fireside Ventures,DSG Consumer Partners, Titan Capital, Whiteboard Capital & Huddle Ventures This in-depth playbook provides valuable insights and tools to help you navigate the meta ecosystem and digital brand scale up journey: - Building powerful brands: Craft a unique identity that connects with your customers. - Growth stage focus areas: Identify key strategies to scale your business. - Driving efficient scale: Optimize your resources for maximum impact. - Cross-border expansion planning: Conquer new markets with confidence. Download your free copy and accelerate your growth! - https://2ly.link/20ZNx (The linked file requires email authentication. Kindly use your email to gain access.)

Happy to share my thoughts in The Mint for the launch of Yuvraj Singh’s Twiddles, a healthy snacking brand, which highlights a growing trend in the consumer space: celebrity-driven brands as a go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Few more examples are Kriti Sanon's Hyphen, or 82E by Deepika Padukone etc; among many more With Yuvraj Singh's credibility and fan following, Twiddles is positioned to make a strong initial splash snacking space. The focus on nut-based spreads and bites, made with up to 70% nuts and seeds and free from preservatives and palm oil, aligns with rising consumer demand for better-for-you alternatives. No palm oil in specific is a strong trend (also check out Let's Try snacking products on Qcomm) However, as we’ve seen in this highly competitive space, early attention doesn’t always translate into sustained success. While celebrity endorsement can amplify brand visibility, long-term differentiation requires innovation and an unwavering focus on consumer preferences. At Sauce.vc, we’ve consistently observed that brands can thrive in crowded F&B markets by perfecting the balance between taste, nutrition, and trust. Twiddles’ emphasis on healthier formulations gives it a unique positioning, but continuous R&D and consumer engagement will be critical for staying ahead. Will be interesting to see how Twiddles navigates its journey and how other celebrity-led ventures approach scaling in the dynamic consumer space. Read more about Twiddles: #BetterForYouSnacking #CelebrityBrands #ConsumerInnovation #Twiddles #Startups #VC

A recent report on the shampoo category (Oct 24) for Blinkit by 1DigitalStack was an eye opener. Quick commerce reflects choice of the urban digital consumer and is the fastest growing channel (Blinkit already delivering 50% of sales levels of Amazon for larger brands). More importantly it is a level-playing field with no shelf space blocks by deep pockets. It reflects, at some level, choice of the core future consumer largely basis product, price and digital promotion (while taking away the incumbents' strength on the 4th P - place or offline distribution). On top of that haircare is the largest beauty segment and toughest to crack given deep rooted global giants like L'Oreal and Unilever with their big marketing pockets and huge R&D budgets. In this context it is quite amazing to see a 2.5 year old haircare brand Bare Anatomy by Innovist become #2 by value ahead of big brands like Dove, Tresemme and Head & Shoulders. In the premium segment which is 50% of Blinkit's market, it is the #1 brand ahead of L'Oreal! Rohit rarely shares his secrets, but we have firsthand heard of such intense consumer love for the shampoos. His team's product obsession has made his other brand Chemist at Play's deo and body wash regular 1-3 ranks in the largest platforms like Amazon. While being 3-5x more expensive and despite having no brand campaign, TV, print or celebrity or expensive offline presence even. In a blink it (pun intended here) is one of the fastest growing scaled up BPC companies of India :) Even as larger FMCG players struggle for growth, product led innovation at the premium end of the Indian consumer economy is seeing strong demand growth. Especially in BPC, as awareness increases, consumers are looking for efficacy delivered through science and having one's own R&D allows continuous innovation and differentiation. So as these new channels take centerstage, product not distribution will become the moat. Exciting times ahead! At Sauce.vc we are rooting for more product-obsessed founders to serve the new Indian consumer in a big way.

We hosted a closed door learning session for select Fund 2 and 3 founders. A small group made for a highly interactive chat. The session was run by Rohit Chawla , founder of Innovist . He shared tools, tricks and operational tips on how to improve marketing efficiency and profitability by focusing on retention, cross-selling and upselling. Innovist houses 3 sharply positioned science based digital beauty brands with its own R&D and manufacturing arms. Over the last year it has had a remarkable 3x scale up with no cash burn at all while turning profitable in a very competitive category, which was a very inspiring case study for all founders. This session is a part of a Pay It Forward series where scaled founders from Sauce portfolio companies and ecosystem share practical experiences and learnings to help the next generation of founders succeed better and faster. Attendees - 1. Riddhi Sharma & Ripul Sharma from BabyOrgano 2. Ishan Sukul from Kreo 3. Tushar Khurana from Perfora 4. Manu Chandra, Padma Milhotra, Karan Kathpalia & Vasundhara Bhagat from Sauce.vc And a few yet to be announced startup portfolio founders.

Tough to imagine Hocco Ice Creams is only one year old! What a year it’s been and we are scooper happy to be #hookedonhocco.

Will be speaking at #MoneyX by Inc42 on the 26th September in Gurugram with such a fantastic panel on the next billion users, the current consumer patterns, aspirational spending and everything in between. So if you’re in Gurugram on the 26th, catch #MoneyX2024 live. Bring in your questions. See you all there – https://4-2.co/3Zyz6F2 Swati Mehra, CFA Salone Sehgal Sumit Keshan Rahul Chandra