Velocity: dilution-free growth capital for D2C brands in four days

For a D2C founder, the funding dilemma is cruel: you need capital for inventory and marketing exactly when equity dilution hurts the most, while banks want collateral you do not have. Velocity, founded in 2020 by Abhiroop Medhekar, Atul Khichariya and Saurav Swaroop and based in Bengaluru, was built to be the third option — revenue-based financing for digital-first businesses, with no equity given up and no personal guarantees demanded.

The model is simple and founder-friendly. Velocity advances growth capital against a business's online cash flows, charging a fixed fee of 5-8% with repayments taken automatically as a share of monthly revenue. Borrowers raise anywhere from ₹5 lakh to ₹10 crore. There is no interest component beyond the fixed fee, no processing fee, no collateral and no personal guarantee. The headline promise: a term sheet within 2 minutes of applying online and funding disbursed within 4 days, through a fully digital process that plugs into the marketplaces and payment systems where the brand already sells.

The scale Velocity now operates at is significant. The platform has crossed ₹3,300 crore in fundable revenues, made 3,000+ investments, reports that 78% of customers return for repeat financing, and says funded brands grow revenues 1.6x post-funding. The equity backing is serious too: Velocity has raised $30 million in equity led by Valar Ventures, Peter Thiel's fund.

Velocity serves four segments — D2C brands, SaaS, edtech and restaurants — with sector-tuned use cases: inventory and marketing for D2C, development and infrastructure for SaaS, course development and acquisition for edtech, and expansion and working capital for restaurants. The customer list reads like a tour of Indian D2C: Smoor, Furlenco, WaterScience, ImagiMake, Setu, Power Gummies, Bella Vita, CrossBeats, Green Soul, Wall Mantra, French Crown, Jha Ji Store and Clownfish, alongside older portfolio names like Soulflower, Chumbak and Off Duty.

In December 2024, Velocity announced a dedicated ₹200 crore fund for restaurants and cloud kitchens selling on food delivery platforms — a sign the platform is deepening into vertical-specific financing rather than staying a generalist lender.

The pitch is not that revenue-based financing replaces venture capital; Velocity itself says it is for digital-first businesses generating healthy revenues, not pre-revenue experiments. But for a brand with real cash flow, the logic is hard to argue with: keep your equity, fund the next inventory cycle, repay from revenue, and come back for more when you scale.