Startup Deep Dive : Wiggles — how a Forbes-listed pet-care brand ran down to two months of cash

In October 2021, Anushka Iyer’s Pune pet-care startup Wiggles raised $5.5 million in a pre-Series A round and looked like one of India’s most promising D2C pet brands, backed by names such as Mamaearth’s Varun Alagh. By the middle of 2025, the same company had stopped paying salaries for more than a year and, by its founders’ own account to Inc42, had roughly two months of cash left.

That is the contradiction this piece pays off: how a Forbes 30 Under 30 founder built a full-stack pet ecosystem, grew revenue to ₹27.7 crore (about $2.9 million) in FY23, acquired a rival, and then watched sales fall, debt climb to ₹79 crore, and staff drain from 270 to a few dozen. Wiggles is a small company by revenue, but its record is unusually well documented — in registrar filings, funding announcements, and a detailed 2025 Inc42 investigation — which makes it a clean case study in how a cash-burning services model can unravel.

Quick facts

What Wiggles does

Wiggles sells pet-care products directly to Indian pet parents, mainly dog and cat owners, and until recently ran physical pet services alongside them. Its best-known product is the Wiggle Box, a monthly subscription of anti-parasitic medicines and nutritional supplements, as noted in Anushka Iyer’s Forbes profile. Around that, the company built a catalogue of roughly 40 SKUs across food, treats, supplements and medicines, sold through its own website, marketplaces and offline distributors. In its earlier form it also offered vet-on-call visits, grooming, boarding and a veterinary hospital in Pune, employing full-time vets and groomers rather than running an aggregator model.

The origin

Wiggles began in December 2018 in Pune, founded by Anushka Iyer with her father, Raj Venkataramani (listed in filings as Rajh V Iyer), and Venky Mahadevan. According to Inc42’s reporting, Iyer had been a long-time Blue Cross volunteer, and the founding idea was an integrated pet-care ecosystem where a single brand handled health, grooming and nutrition to a consistent standard. The differentiator was control: rather than connecting owners to third-party vets and groomers, Wiggles hired its own, which promised quality but locked in fixed costs from day one.

The bet had good timing. Iyer was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list for retail and ecommerce in 2021, and pet ownership in Indian cities rose sharply through the COVID-19 period, exactly when Wiggles was scaling its subscription box and services. For a few years the story was one of fast growth across Pune, Mumbai and Hyderabad. What the origin already contained, though, was the tension that would later define the company: a services-led model that pet parents valued but that was, in Venkataramani’s own later words to Inc42, “very capex heavy.”

The struggle years

The strain showed up in the accounts well before the public crisis. Losses ran ahead of revenue for years: on registrar filings reported by Inc42, Wiggles lost ₹7.8 crore in FY21 against just ₹3.9 crore of revenue, and by FY23 the loss had widened to ₹31 crore on ₹27.7 crore of revenue. The company was spending heavily to build clinics, a boarding facility, a distributor network and a product range at the same time, and each of those lines carried its own fixed cost.

Two setbacks turned strain into emergency. First, the Series A that was meant to fund the next stage never closed: Wiggles opened discussions in late 2023 for a $15-20 million round, but investors wanted a path to profit the company could not show, and the round collapsed. Second, salaries stopped. Multiple people told Inc42 that pay simply did not arrive from April 2024, with leadership initially blaming short “funding delays.” Venkataramani later acknowledged to Inc42 that “salaries, including the PF, have not been paid since last year due to a working capital crunch,” with unpaid dues put at ₹3-4 crore. Headcount, which had peaked at about 270 in May 2023, fell to 172 employees receiving provident-fund contributions by April 2024, and to a skeleton team by 2025.

The turning point

The decisive event was the failed Series A and the retrenchment that followed it in 2024. On one side of that line, Wiggles was a full-stack brand with clinics, grooming, boarding and products, revenue near ₹27.7 crore in FY23, and a plausible pitch for a $15-20 million round. On the other side, the round did not happen, and the company chose to cut rather than raise. It exited the capex-heavy services business entirely to preserve cash and bet everything on products. Venkataramani framed it as a deliberate choice, telling Inc42 he “had a term sheet on a table” but chose “the sustainability of the business” instead.

The retrenchment did not stabilise revenue; it accelerated the decline. FY24 sales fell to ₹21.6 crore even as expenses rose to ₹64.8 crore and the loss grew to ₹43 crore, and FY25 revenue then collapsed to about ₹10 crore. The pivot meant to save the company coincided with its sharpest fall in sales.

The money behind it

Wiggles raised modestly across its life, and the shape of the funding matters as much as the total:

• November 2019 — $1 million first (angel) round, from individuals including LTI COO Nachiket Deshpande and Dell EMC senior director Aparna Badkundri (Inc42, November 2019).
• October 2021 — $5.5 million pre-Series A, led by Anthill Ventures with Panthera Peak Capital and angels including Mamaearth’s Varun Alagh and Ubiquity Capital’s Nikhil Bhandarkar (Inc42 and GlobalPETS, October 2021).
• Total raised — over $6.5 million to date, per Inc42’s 2025 reporting; the startup remains private with no disclosed post-money valuation.
• The round that did not happen — a targeted $15-20 million Series A in late 2023 that failed to materialise, which is the single most important funding fact in the story (Inc42, June 2025).

What each backer changed is instructive. The 2019 angels gave Wiggles the credibility to expand cities and distribution. Anthill Ventures’ 2021 round funded the aggressive build-out of products and services during the pet-ownership boom. And the absence of a Series A, more than any single investment, set the ceiling on how long the burn could continue.

How it makes money

Wiggles’ economics changed sharply between its two eras. The mechanics work roughly like this:

• Products — margin comes from selling own-brand food, treats, supplements, medicines and the Wiggle Box subscription through the website, marketplaces and distributors. Subscriptions add repeat revenue; distributor sales add reach but thin the margin.
• Services (now exited) — grooming, vet-on-call, boarding and a hospital generated fee revenue, but with full-time vets and groomers plus physical facilities, the cost base was fixed and, as the founders put it, capex-heavy, so cash burn was high.
• The part people get wrong — Wiggles was often read as a subscription-box brand, but for years a large share of its cost and complexity sat in the services and distribution layers, which is precisely where the cash drained.
• Acquisitive growth — the March 2023 purchase of grooming brand Capt Zack was a cash-and-equity deal aimed at buying scale and a natural-grooming range rather than building it (Indian Retailer, March 2023).

The numbers

The following figures are drawn from registrar filings reported by Inc42; FY25 is company-stated and not yet audited in public filings. Units are ₹ crore.

The pattern is stark: revenue peaked at ₹27.7 crore in FY23, then fell for two straight years, while losses widened to ₹43 crore in FY24 — a loss roughly double that year’s revenue. By the end of FY24, Wiggles carried about ₹79 crore of debt, per Inc42. FY22 revenue was reported at ₹16.2 crore, marking the last year of clean growth before the peak and decline.

Where the money comes from

The revenue mix shifted from a products-and-services blend to products only, and the split explains the surprise in the numbers:

• Products — food, treats, supplements, medicines and the Wiggle Box subscription, roughly 40 SKUs, sold via website, ecommerce marketplaces and offline distributors.
• Services — grooming, vet-on-call, boarding and a Pune veterinary hospital, all exited in the 2024 cost-cutting to reduce burn.
• Geography — the business grew from Pune into Mumbai and Hyderabad during its expansion phase.
• Distribution — the offline network was cut from about 180 distributors at peak to 24, per Inc42, sharply narrowing reach.

The surprise is that moving to a leaner, product-only model did not lift revenue — it fell, from ₹21.6 crore in FY24 to about ₹10 crore in FY25. Cutting the capex-heavy services also cut the footfall, brand touchpoints and distributor confidence that had helped move product, and web-traffic estimates cited by Inc42 (under 15,000 monthly visits to Wiggles.in, largely for educational content) suggest limited standalone D2C pull.

The risks

The concrete risks are the ones already playing out in Wiggles’ own disclosures:

• Solvency and working capital — about ₹79 crore of debt at end-FY24, ₹3-4 crore of unpaid salaries and PF since April 2024, and, on the founders’ account, roughly two months of runway as of mid-2025 (Inc42, June 2025). The mechanism is simple: costs that never fell fast enough for a shrinking top line.
• Financing dependence — the model relied on a Series A that never closed. With investors demanding profitability that a cash-burning D2C-plus-services model could not show, the funding tap turned off and the company had no cushion.
• Trust and governance — the distributor network collapsed to 24, and Inc42 reported unpaid warehouse rent of about ₹1 crore to Flomic Logistics, with distributors left holding unsold stock. Separately, Inc42 noted that co-founder Raj Venkataramani launched another venture, Seetara, during 2023-24, raising questions about focus during the crisis.

The takeaway

The transferable lesson from Wiggles is about the order of operations in a capital-scarce market. The company was not undone by a bad product or a small market; it was undone by building a fixed, capex-heavy cost base — clinics, groomers, boarding, distribution and an acquisition — on the assumption that a large Series A would arrive to pay for it. When the funding climate turned and investors asked for profitability first, the model had no way to shrink gracefully. Cutting services to save cash also cut the very revenue drivers the brand depended on, so retrenchment and decline arrived together. For founders, the caution is direct: infrastructure you build ahead of demand is only as safe as the next round, and a business that cannot survive one missed raise was never really funded — it was only financed until the music stopped.

Frequently asked questions

Who owns and operates Wiggles?

Wiggles is the brand of Sixth Sense Retail Private Limited, a Pune company incorporated in 2018 (CIN U74993PN2018PTC180655, per Tracxn). Anushka Iyer is its founder and CEO, and co-founders include Rajh V Iyer (Raj Venkataramani) and Venky Mahadevan.

How much money has Wiggles raised?

Over $6.5 million to date, per Inc42. The largest disclosed round was a $5.5 million pre-Series A in October 2021 led by Anthill Ventures, following a $1 million angel round in November 2019. A targeted $15-20 million Series A in late 2023 did not close.

Is Wiggles profitable?

No. On registrar filings reported by Inc42, it lost ₹43 crore in FY24 against ₹21.6 crore of revenue. Revenue then fell to about ₹10 crore in FY25, when the company said its loss narrowed by around 60% without giving a figure.

Did Wiggles stop paying its employees?

Yes. Co-founder Raj Venkataramani acknowledged to Inc42 that salaries and PF had gone unpaid since April 2024 due to a working-capital crunch, with dues of ₹3-4 crore. Headcount fell from about 270 in May 2023 to a skeleton team by 2025.

What happened to Capt Zack?

Wiggles acquired the D2C grooming brand Capt Zack in a cash-and-equity deal announced on 31 March 2023, aiming to widen its natural pet-grooming range and build a fuller pet-care ecosystem. No deal value was disclosed (Indian Retailer, March 2023).

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• Inc42, “Inside Wiggles’ Woes: Cash Crunch, Employee Exodus & An Uncertain Future” — June 2025 (financials, debt, unpaid salaries, headcount, distributor cuts, runway, founder quotes).
• Inc42, “Pet Care Startup Wiggles Raises $1 Mn, Will Expand Its Footprint” — November 2019 (first angel round, investors, founders).
• Inc42, “Pune-Based Petcare D2C Startup Wiggles Raises $5.5 Mn” — October 2021 (pre-Series A round, backers).
• GlobalPETS, “D2C pet care brand Wiggles raises $5.5 million” — October 2021 (pre-Series A corroboration).
• Indian Retailer, “Petcare Brand Wiggles Acquires Capt Zack” — March 2023 (acquisition date and terms).
• Forbes, “Anushka Iyer” profile — 30 Under 30 Asia, Retail & Ecommerce, 2021 (founder recognition, Wiggle Box, angel funding).
• Tracxn, “Wiggles Company Profile” — 2026 (legal entity, CIN, founding, competitors).

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