02 - 07 - 2026

IvyCap doubles down on Zuvees as startup eyes ₹80cr Series A funding

The cross-border gifting sector is facing a structural shift as instant communication transforms consumer expectations from planned purchases to on-demand transactions.

Zuvees, a Bangalore-founded premium gifting platform, has secured a Rs 15 crore ($1.6m) follow-on investment from IvyCap Ventures, bringing its total funding to date to Rs 30 crore ($3.3m) as it seeks to institutionalise what it terms “Gifting 3.0.” The fresh capital forms part of an ongoing Series A round, with the company targeting a total raise of Rs 60–80 crore.

Management intends to deploy the funds to scale its artificial intelligence capabilities, deepen its customer relationship management data infrastructure, and expand its operational footprint across major international metropolitan markets.

The trust deficit

While global e-commerce has optimised supply chains for standard consumer goods over the past decade, the bespoke gifting market remains fragmented and plagued by execution risk. For cross-border senders, a lack of transparency often leads to a mismatch between digital catalogue imagery and the physical item delivered to the recipient.

Zuvees, which commercially launched in the UAE in early 2025, has built its operational model around mitigating this friction. The platform has introduced pre-dispatch video approvals and an outright customer satisfaction commitment to capture a larger share of the international remittance and expat gifting markets. The startup currently serves customers across more than 50 countries, generating an annualized revenue run-rate in excess of $3 million while maintaining positive unit economics.

Vijaykumar Ghadge, co-founder and chief executive of Zuvees, said:

“When someone sends a gift, they are not purchasing flowers, chocolates, or a hamper. They are purchasing an emotion.

The biggest challenge in gifting today is expectation mismatch. What the sender imagines, what the platform promises, and what the recipient ultimately receives are often three very different things. This trust gap has existed for decades and becomes even more significant in cross-border gifting, where customers are relying entirely on the platform to represent their emotions.

At Zuvees, we have built the company around eliminating that gap. Every innovation we introduce, from Video Approval before dispatch to our quality assurance systems and customer-first guarantees, is designed to ensure that what customers expect is exactly what gets delivered.

We are also witnessing a structural shift in consumer behavior. Gifting is moving from a planned activity to an on-demand experience. People no longer want to celebrate tomorrow. They want to celebrate now. The future belongs to platforms that can combine trust, personalization, and speed, and that’s precisely what we’re building.

While we started in the UAE, our ambition has always been global. The UAE is one of the world’s most cosmopolitan markets, bringing together people from over 130 nationalities with strong gifting traditions and high cross-border engagement. It has proven to be an ideal testing ground for building a brand designed for globally connected consumers. The playbooks, technology, and customer insights we are developing here are intended to scale across major international cities around the world.”

Algorithmic curation

The corporate strategy hinges on moving away from dense, static digital catalogues toward an algorithmic recommendation engine. By capturing cultural context, relationship nuances, and occasion-specific data, the company aims to automate the discovery process for cross-border consumers.

Abhishek Daiya, co-founder and chief product and financial officer of Zuvees, added:

“We believe the next generation of gifting companies will be powered by intelligence rather than catalogues.

The challenge isn’t helping customers buy a gift. The challenge is helping them discover the right gift for the right person at the right moment. Relationships are nuanced, occasions are personal, and customer expectations continue to evolve.

We are building a proprietary AI layer that understands gifting intent, recipient preferences, purchase behavior, cultural context, and occasion-specific signals to deliver hyper-personalized recommendations at scale.

This investment allows us to accelerate that vision by expanding our technology capabilities, automating our operations, and building the data infrastructure necessary to power a truly intelligent gifting platform. Our goal is to become the trusted layer between human emotions and meaningful gifting experiences.”

For venture capital backers, the attraction lies in the scalability of a technology-first layer superimposed on a traditionally high-margin but operationally messy logistics sector.

Vikram Gupta, founder and managing partner at IvyCap Ventures, said:

“What attracted us to Zuvees is its ability to address a global consumer need through a technology-led platform. As gifting becomes increasingly cross-border, the company is uniquely positioned to deliver trusted, personalized experiences at scale. We have been impressed by the team’s execution and are excited to support their journey in building a category-defining global gifting brand.”