D2C home decor startup, Nestasia, raises $4 million 

Home decor startup, Nestasia has raised $4 million in a Series A round which was led by Stellaris Venture Partners. Several angel investors who are part of the Stellaris Founder Network, an exclusive group of more than 60 high-quality entrepreneurs and industry professionals, also participated in the round. These include Varun Alagh (CEO, MamaEarth), Sahil Barua (CEO, Delhivery), Anuj Srivastava & Ramakant Sharma (founders, Livspace) and Dilip Khandelwal (Global CIO, Deutsche India).

This also marks first investment in the home decor and lifestyle segment by Stellaris Venture Partners, which closed its $225 million funding round recently.

Apart from the capital investment and access to angel investors from the Stellaris Founder Network, the fund’s involvement in Nestasia will be multidimensional. This includes helping them with various e-commerce partners in their network, hiring for key positions through internal support teams, and providing counsel on strategic initiatives and team building, geared towards faster growth. 

Nestasia is an online home decor and lifestyle brand which was founded in 2019 by Aditi Murarka Agrawal and Anurag Agrawal with the aim to provide a unique range of products that touch each part of a home attuned to the tastes of both modern and traditional homes. The company manufactures and brings products from across India and South-east Asia to offer a fine mix of products that blend modern design, traditional techniques and a wide range of materials like clay, metal, wood, marble and so on. Nestasia has over 6,000 products across categories on its website -- including kitchen & dining, decor, garden, bath & storage to name a few. In just a little over two years, the company has completed 100,000 orders and has a customer base of over 50,000, spread across 7 countries.

Nestasia is looking to reach over 10 million households in India by 2025. With new launches every week, the brand is also looking to increase its range to 10,000 products by June 2022, further expanding into other categories including cookware & soft furnishings. With this round, Nestasia is looking to invest on its platform, products, technology and infrastructure.

“There has been a shift in the way people think about their homes. It’s a space where a lot of time has been spent working and entertaining lately. This has amped up the desire for upgrades in the home environment and the fact that consumers are willing to opt for unique, good quality products has expedited our growth by three-fold in the last one year,” Aditi Murarka Agrawal, co-founder of Nestasia, said.

“We are excited to have Rahul Chowdhri from Stellaris Venture Partners on our board, who brings with him a wealth of experience and understanding of the D2C space and the nuances of achieving scale,” she added.

Rahul Chowdhri, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners said that the home & kitchen segment is a Rs 1,00,000 crore market that is largely unrecognised. “However, it has been one of the fastest growing segments and is witnessing a sea change with increased online penetration and premiumisation alongside changing consumer behaviour that has been further accelerated by the pandemic," he said.