India Quotient, along with the founders of social network ShareChat and online fashion brand FabAlley, has invested in hair care startup Zemé Fresh, which was founded by Prerna Bhutani, a former partner of the venture capital firm.
Zemé (pronounced zay-may) sells shampoos and conditioners that are “made from herbs and fresh kitchen ingredients – not extracts – without any artificial chemicals or preservatives,” according to the company’s website. The company’s products must be refrigerated, just like fresh produce.
Bhutani did not reveal the amount raised, but stated that the funds will be used to expand within Mumbai, where the startup is based, improve packaging and logistics, and hire people to expand into other cities.
“Home remedies have always been a way of life for me – as a little girl, I always used only concoctions made by my mom, on my skin and hair. But I gave all that up as I grew up – after all who likes to make messy pastes and concoctions at home anymore?” Bhutani said.
“As I got older, I started having a lot of hair issues – crazy hairfall, thinning and even bald patches. I tried everything – hair products, treatments, hair growth serums, etc – but nothing seemed to show any permanent results. As a last-ditch attempt, on my mom’s advice, I went back to using those same concoctions for my hair. And that’s when things started changing. My hair quality got better, hair fall reduced significantly – I even started getting compliments for my hair for the first time in my life,” she added.
Zemé is one of a slew of new age brands attempting to address hair fall issues, including Mamaearth, Mosaic Wellness, and Traya Health.
It is also the latest instance of a venture capital firm investing in the new venture of a former partner. In other cases, Vikram Chopra worked as an analyst at Sequoia India before raising funds from the venture capital firm for Cars24, an ecommerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, and Ishan Preet Singh worked at Lightspeed before founding education firm FrontRow, which the investor poured money into.
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