Puresh Daily raises funds, Nykaa acquires Pipa Bella

Dairy and fresh farm produce startup Puresh Daily, operated by Max Digital Solutions, has raised Rs 1.2 crore ($160,000 as per current exchange rates) in a seed funding round from Agility Venture Partners and Alfa Ventures co-founder Dhianu Das. 

"We're charged with the investors' confidence, as they oversubscribed our startup during this seed round. With these funds, we will expand our product base to at least 10 tier-II cities, to 20,000 subscribers and partner with different entrepreneurs," Manish Piyush, founder of Puresh Daily, said in a statement.  

The Ranchi-based startup was founded in 2019 by Piyush and Aditya Kumar.  

Piyush, an alumnus of BITS and IIM, handles marketing and business development for Puresh Daily. He has more than 14 years of leadership experience as a Tata Administrative Service (TAS) officer at the Tata Group.  

Kumar holds a BTech degree from BITS and has previously worked at Tata Motors. At Puresh Daily, he handles technology, finance and product development. 

Puresh Daily offers a milk subscription service, tabling produce from their eight franchise farms to 1,200 subscribers in the cities of Ranchi, Ramgarh and Bokaro. It claims to offer chemical-free products through value chains, augmented by artificial intelligence. This allows it to provide traceable logistics, green packaging and smart payment options, as per the statement. 

Kumar said that the company expects to scale in tier-II cities and metros. "We also want to invest our time and resources in innovation in products and packaging," he said. 

"First, milk is a recession-free business, capable of growth in Covid times. It's also highly unorganised, with several dairy farms in dire need of upgradation and market reach. Their idea has enormous potential," Prashant Narang, founder, Agility Venture Partners, said.  

Nykaa acquires Pipa Bella 

Mumbai-based Nykaa E-Retail, which operates retail platforms for beauty and fashion products, has acquired Pipa Bella Accessories-run online jewellery brand Pipa Bella for an undisclosed amount. 

The deal will help Nykaa Fashion, the Falguni Nayar-led startup’s fashion brand, expand its jewellery category, a statement said. 

Pipa Bella, the statement said, will continue to offer its services on its own website, while extending the functionality as a consumer brand under the Nykaa Fashion portfolio.  

The jewellery brand, which claims to offer over 1,500 custom-made and readymade styles, targets urban women in the 22-35 age range. 

“We have seen a rising trend of personalised minimalistic and premium fashion accessories in the Indian market. Our aim is to extend the brand’s core signature design to a much larger landscape by becoming a full range accessories label. We believe that there is a strong opportunity to provide premium fashion jewellery with contemporary design and functionality at the core of the customer experience,” Adwaita Nayar, CEO of Nykaa Fashion, said. 

In 2019, Nykaa Fashion had acquired Twenty Dresses.  

Earlier this year, Nykaa allotted shares worth Rs 64 crore (approximately $8.7 million at the time) under employee stock option schemes.