D2C footwear brand CHK raised $2.5 M from Accel, Bluestone, others

Accel, jewellery retailer Bluestone, and other investors have contributed 2.5 million dollars to the D2C footwear startup CHK.
Bluestone had previously invested around Rs 12 crore (roughly $1.3 million) in the business in November 2024.
In anticipation of its April public launch, CHK said in a press release that the newly raised funds will be utilized to increase production and improve research and development (R&D) activities.
Sankar Bora, Deepan Babu, Bharat Mahajan, and Deepak Patil co-founded CHK in October 2024. The company focuses on creating, producing, and marketing footwear. With an emphasis on creating cutting-edge footwear for the premium and mass-premium markets, the company’s “concept to creation” model enables it to manage the entire production process.
In November 2023, Sankar Bora, who had previously co-founded DealShare, left the company.
Before pursuing offline retail channels, CHK plans to start sales through its dedicated D2C website. The company has a manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu. The company currently employs about 25 people in Tamil Nadu and Bengaluru, and by April, it hopes to have 100 employees.
The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification is a requirement set by the Indian government for all shoe brand factories. Many Indian businesses have been encouraged by this regulation to either rely on domestic production capabilities or handle design and manufacturing internally. CHK hopes to be approved by April after submitting an application for BIS certification.
For its products, CHK aims to charge an average of about Rs 4,500.