My last name, ‘Vaidya’, means Ayurvedic (traditional Indian herbal medicine) doctor and I come from a legacy of 150 years and six generations of Ayurveda in my family.
I was born and raised in Mumbai, India and then went to Brown University. During my time in the U.S, I saw the move towards natural and organic products as well as the global spread of yoga. This, along with the fact that I had been cured of asthma by my grandfather’s Ayurvedic treatment in my childhood, sowed the seed in my mind that I wanted to do something ‘new-age’ based on my family’s heritage.
I moved back to India in 2013 and spent three years working in consumer-focused investing at L Catterton Asia. When my grandfather passed away, I quit my job to start a company that would take our family legacy of one local Ayurvedic clinic across the country to reach thousands of consumers.
I built Dr. Vaidya’s from scratch to become India’s largest Ayurvedic direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand. We scaled the business across over 16,000 zip codes, had over two million paying customers and launched 80 products. In March 2021, one of our investors RP-Sanjiv Goenka acquired the brand – making it one of India’s first D2C exits.
After this, I jumped at the opportunity to engage with Verlinvest. It seemed like the perfect place to put into action my purpose of adding value back to India’s consumer ecosystem in a meaningful way. I now lead venture investing for Verlinvest in India and am excited to build this new vertical for the firm. As part of this strategy, we will invest USD 1-5m across consumer brands, e-commerce/new commerce platforms, enablers and consumer technology businesses.
I am a big fan of the open culture and global nature of Verlinvest. At work, I am most excited to meet game-changing founders on a daily basis and to learn about their disruptive businesses. Outside of work, I am a runner, sports fanatic and active podcaster (check out my podcast, Direct to a Billion Consumers across platforms)!