Venture capital firm India Quotient invests in former partner’s hair care startup Zemé Fresh along with others

Prerna Bhutani (second from right), former partner of India Quotient

India Quotient, along with founders of social network ShareChat and online fashion brand FabAlley, has invested in hair care startup Zemé Fresh launched by Prerna Bhutani in the pandemic who is a former partner of the venture capital firm.

Zemé (pronounced zay-may) sells hair products such as shampoos and conditioners “made from herbs and fresh kitchen ingredients – not extracts – without any artificial chemicals or preservatives”, its website says. The firm’s products need to be refrigerated like fresh produce.

Bhutani did not disclose the amount raised but said the money will be used to expand within Mumbai, where the startup is based, improve packaging and logistics and hire people to foray into other cities.

Moneycontrol reported in May 2020 that Bhutani had stepped down from India Quotient and would work in a temporary role of a venture partner as she transitioned back into entrepreneurship. Bhutani has her roots in entrepreneurship: from 2010 to 2012 she was co-founder and CEO of online home services company One Call India. From 2012 to 2015, she was co-founder and chief marketing officer at mystery shopping startup Red Quanta which involved collecting information for brands.

Then as the first lockdown came in 2020 after her stint with India Quotient, she noticed people going back to natural and local solutions for food, health and personal care. This prompted her foray into the space as an entrepreneur.

“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 among a slew of new age brands looking to resolve hair fall issues, along with startups such as Mamaearth, Mosaic Wellness, and Traya Health.

It is also the latest example of a venture capital firm backing its former partner’s new enterprise. In other instances, Vikram Chopra was an analyst at Sequoia India before raising money from the venture capital firm for Cars24 which is an ecommerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, while Ishan Preet Singh was with Lightspeed before starting education firm FrontRow, which the investor piled into.