Venture Catalysts Exits TruNativ at 12.73x

SMEStreet reported on 15 July 2026 that early stage investor Venture Catalysts has taken a full exit from TruNativ, a nutrition and wellness brand, booking strong returns across two separate cheques.

What the returns show

Venture Catalysts first backed TruNativ in June 2021 and followed on through its angel fund in September 2024. Per SMEStreet, the 2021 investment returned 12.73 times capital, an internal rate of return of roughly 67 percent over a holding period of nearly five years. The 2024 investment returned 1.34 times, an IRR of about 18 percent over roughly 21 months. The firm did not disclose the buyer or the size of the exit. TruNativ sells clean label, science backed nutrition products across digital and retail channels. ‘The health and wellness sector continues to present compelling opportunities as consumer preferences increasingly shift toward preventive healthcare and nutrition focused products,’ said Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Managing Director at Venture Catalysts.

Why the exit is the real headline

New rounds get the attention. Exits pay the bills. A full exit tells founders that a consumer wellness brand can be bought, not just funded. That matters because most D2C brands are sold, not listed. Very few reach an IPO. The gap between the two tranches also carries a lesson. The early cheque compounded for five years and returned almost thirteen times. The later cheque had less time and returned a fraction of that. Time in the business, not just the entry price, drove the multiple.

What an operator does with this

Know your buyer before you need one. If you run a wellness or nutrition brand, list the strategics and funds who could acquire you, and track what they are paying. Build the brand so an acquirer can plug it in without friction, which means clean books, clear margins and honest cohort data. The founders who get the best exit are the ones who were sellable long before they sold.