Palette Brands raises $2M in a pre-Series A funding round led by Rockstud Capital, others

Palette Brands (Earlier White. Inc), a next-generation consumer goods company building aspirational brands across high-growth verticals, has raised close to $2 million in a pre-series A funding round. 

Rockstud Capital led the round, with participation from existing investors IPV and Dholakia Ventures and some prominent angel investors Stoffer Anko Norden and Apurva Salapuria.

Who are the founders?

Founded in 2022 by a group of e-commerce experts, Siddharth Gadodia, Young Yun, Himanshi Tandon & Bret Recor. They bring together over 30+ years of combined experience in product development, technology, operations, ecommerce, supply chain, and marketing.

Palette Brands is powered by a technology-enabled growth infrastructure that spans consumer research, product development, supply chain, marketing, and sales.

This infrastructure is designed to rapidly develop, launch, and scale modern consumer product brands.

"The founding team comes with a diverse background and complementary skillset which is extremely important when you are building a brand in the consumer space in India. Also, there is a huge whitespace and potential for disruption when it comes to the cookware category in our country as consumers are seeking new product offerings and refreshing new designs," said Abhishek Agarwal, Managing Partner of Rockstud Capital.

What does Palette Brands do?

According to a report by Goldman Sachs Research, the cohort of affluent consumers in India will increase from around 60 million in 2023 to 100 million people by 2027.

Palette is building for this aspirational affluent consumer who seeks great product design and value. This includes products in the mass premium segment of categories that have a large TAM and significant unmet consumer needs. 

The startup claims that its brands are disrupting through product innovation via high-performance materials, design aesthetics, superior functionality and value-for-money pricing. 

Current brands include ‘Unbottle’, a reusable and sustainable drinkware product, and ‘Totem’, which creates accessories exclusively for the growing Apple consumer base in India.

Launching a cookware brand 

According to Siddharth Gadodia, the raised capital will primarily be utilized towards launching a cookware brand Ember. 

“This funding will predominantly focus on the launch of Ember, a cookware brand, as this category is ripe for innovation - with consumers looking to upgrade their kitchens while making healthier choices. This is a huge white space - marrying form and functionality. Ember aims to solve this by bringing India's first absolutely non-toxic cookware brand with non-stick properties and stunning looks," Gadodia said.