Quick commerce, direct-to-consumer brands and digital consumer platforms such as content and gaming are segments where the next $100 million net revenue businesses could emerge from, according to a new report by Bessemer Venture Partners.
As India’s digital economy rapidly evolves, these sectors are gaining momentum on the back of AI-led personalisation, rising smartphone usage, and a digital-native consumer base.
Anant Vidur Puri, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, says AI is acting as the “grease for the wheels” for the digital consumer economy. With the average Indian spending about 7–8 hours a day on their smartphone, the device has effectively become the consumer’s mall, movie theatre, bank and shopping assistant all in one.
“AI enhances this by making content creation cheaper, gaming development faster, and consumer experiences more seamless across sectors like financial well-being, healthcare triaging, and education,” he said in an interaction with FE.
Earlier this year, US-based Bessemer Venture Partners closed its second India-dedicated, early-stage focused fund with a corpus of $350 million, more than its first fund of $221 million launched four years ago. Bessemer Venture began investing in the country nearly two decades ago.
While the recent rise of quick commerce platforms has been well documented, an emerging segment here is the verticalized quick commerce startups, such as 10-minute home services platform Snabbit and 30-minute fashion delivery app Slikk.
“The economic model of vertical quick commerce players is still evolving, but there is space for such players provided they have high-frequency use cases and strong execution,” said Puri. “Ad sales on these platforms are also a powerful new channel of revenue, giving brands better conversion rates and platforms a significant monetization lever.”
Meanwhile, the D2C ecosystem is flourishing as consumers seek highly specialized, aspirational products across wellness, fashion, beauty, and food. From protein water to gut health supplements, new-age brands are capturing the uptrend.
“Despite the explosion of direct-to-consumer brands in recent years, there is still space for many more consumer brands to make a mark and scale,” noted Puri. “We think there is a lot more to do, particularly in the wellness domain, which is what we are most excited about.”
On the content side, mobile-first platforms are capitalizing on consumers’ love for short, snackable entertainment. Micro-drama apps are targeting blue-collar audiences who engage during brief work breaks. “The rise of micro-drama content platforms is a natural extension of shifting consumption habits,” said Puri. “While average revenue per user (Arpu) remains low, customer acquisition costs (CAC) are also much lower, potentially making the economics viable over time.”