Announcing D2C Retreat 2025: 50+ Consumer Brand Leaders, Off-Grid & Off-Record For 3 Days

What happens when India’s most ambitious D2C and retail founders go off-the-grid for 3 days?

Last year in Shimla, we found out.

In the hills, away from pitch decks and routine, consumer brand builders chose relationship over networking, transparency over transactions, and vulnerability over vanity — turning conversations into collaborations and peers into partners.

This September, D2C Retreat is back with its second edition. Not just to recreate the moment, but to raise the bar.

Announcing D2C Retreat: The Second Chapter Begins

The second edition unfolds in the foothills of the Shivaliks, at the Oberoi Sukhvilas — a sanctuary nestled amidst 8,000 acres of protected forest.

Surrounded by sal, sheesham, and silence, the retreat’s new home sets the tone for what’s to come: deeper thinking, unfiltered candour, and a clarity that only stillness allows.

A world away from funding noise to CAC pressures to ROAS dashboards, 50 of the country’s most iconic new-age consumer and retail brand founders will come together to reflect, reconnect, and reimagine.

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What’s Different This Time

India’s consumption story is entering a pivotal chapter. With rising per-capita income and shifting GenZ and millennial behaviours, what India buys and how is being reshaped by cultural aspirations as much as commercial logic.

At Inc42, we’ve spent the last six years championing this evolution — helping consumer brands scale through sharp editorial, deep-dive research, founder-first summits, and hands-on learning through our cohort-based courses.

But amid the headlines and momentum, one truth stood out: founders are craving for honest, high-trust spaces to go beyond the playbooks and confront the real challenges — building enduring teams, navigating leadership shifts, architecting personal scale, and well being — while also making sense of what’s next for India’s consumption story in a world where channels blur, categories emerge, and consumer loyalty is earned, not assumed.

That’s why the D2C Retreat was born last year, and after its incredible reception, we’re thrilled to bring back its second edition. Not as a repeat, but as a reinvention.

From Sept 12-14, 50 of India’s most ambitious consumer brand leaders will gather again, not for panels or keynotes, but to unpack the journey of building in today’s India — this is where India’s next chapter in consumption will take shape within a trusted circle built for unfiltered conversations.

What You’ll Feel, Find, And Forge

After a breakthrough debut, we took a year to pause, listen, and reimagine what founders truly need and the answer was clear: depth over noise, curation over crowd, candour over performance.

The 2nd Edition of The D2C Retreat is built around that clarity.

• Just 50 founders. One high-trust room. Each leading a consumer or retail brand with INR 150 Cr+ in annual revenue, collectively driving INR 20,000 Cr+ in turnover — the operators behind India’s next billion transactions.
• No stages. No panels. No noise. Real conversations, in founder-led circles — on IPO readiness, wealth architecture, strategic exits, and rewriting the India 2030 playbook.
• Curated cohorts, intentional design. Every experience, breakout, and interaction is shaped to foster perspective and trust, not posturing or pitches.
• Unstructured time, structured impact. From fireside evenings to silent mornings, every moment is built to unlock reflection, vulnerability, and connection.

We’ll go beyond noise and narrative to what actually moves the needle for India’s next generation of consumer brands.

• What does omnichannel success really look like in a world that’s no longer just D2C or just offline — but everywhere, all at once.
• Where will the next billion transactions in India’s consumption economy come from?
• Which categories are primed for breakout growth — lab-grown diamonds, headphones, luggage, premium wellness, or the Stanley Cup moment India hasn’t had yet?
• What does it take to move from founder-led hustle to professionally-run scale and build enduring teams that can go the distance?
• How are India’s new-age brands thinking about IPOs, strategic exits, and personal wealth architecture?

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A Rare Room, Carefully Curated

The D2C Retreat is purpose-built for a highly curated cohort of new-age consumer and modern retail brand leaders shaping the future of Indian consumption. This isn’t just about who’s building big — it’s about bringing together a homogeneous circle of high-scale operators navigating similar inflection points, challenges, and ambitions. It’s a space where strategy gets sharper, conversations get real, and connections turn into collaborations.

Access is by invitation-only and extended selectively to founders or leaders who meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Brands valued at $50 Mn (INR 430 Cr) or more
• Brands that have raised $15 Mn+ (INR 125 Cr) in total funding
• Brands generating $20 Mn+ (INR 170 Cr) in annual revenue

We are building a rare room where India’s boldest brand builders unplug to think, question, and reimagine — without the noise. Because the future of consumption won’t be built in boardrooms or on buzzy stages — it’ll be shaped in rooms like this.

D2C Retreat is where ambition will meet honesty. Where founders will trade playbooks for perspective to move the ecosystem forward and shape India’s consumption story…

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