Lightspeed Venture Partners has joined the round, making it the largest fundraise by an Indian Thrasio style startup yet.
New Delhi, NFAPost: India’s largest Thrasio-style investment venture, GlobalBees has raised $150 million in a mix of equity and debt in a Series A led by FirstCry & some of its investors with additional participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners.
This is the largest Series A funding round by an Indian Thrasio style startup in the country. With this round, Vikas Agnihotri of Softbank, Harsha Kumar of Lightspeed, Atul Gupta of Premji Invest, Sudhir Sethi of Chiratae Ventures and Kshitij Sheth of Chrys Capital will join the GlobalBees board.
With a focus on capital efficiency, GlobalBees looks to partner with digitally native brands across categories like Beauty, Personal Care, Home, Kitchen, Food, Nutrition, Sports, lifestyle etc. with a revenue rate of US $1M-$20M, which as per the company, is proof of a great product-market fit.
India is seeing an uptick of smaller brands, with nearly 120,000 new vendors selling on Amazon India, of which around 4,200+ brands crossed Rs 1 crore in sales in 2020. These numbers present an excellent opportunity for GlobalBees to accelerate the D2C sector.
Commenting on the investment, GlobalBees Co-Founder and CEO Nitin Agarwal said GlobalBees aims to unleash the power of product innovation by Indian entrepreneurs and strategically partner with them to help them realize the full potential of their brand and products.
“Apart from capital, GlobalBees brings in strategic capabilities across Marketing & Growth, Technology, Distribution, Sourcing, Branding, Warehousing, Logistics, R&D, Product Development and Operations- all things essential to rapidly scale the brands in the digital space,” said Nitin Agarwal.
FirstCry Co-Founders, Supam Maheshwari and Nitin Agarwal, had earlier cofounded Brainvisa Technologies back in 2000. A brainstorming session around creating a vibrant D2C ecosystem & partnering with exciting fellow entrepreneurs brought two long-time friends together to start GlobalBees.
Nitin Agarwal said both of them are extremely excited to have a stellar list of investors on cap table and we are looking partner with founders who have built brands based on unique consumer insights. The funds raised will play a crucial role in helping us scale these brands globally “, added Nitin.
D2C companies with their agile DNA have brought in a wave of value generation in the consumer space in India. With a backdrop of rapid growth over the past few years, direct-to-consumer brands in India have come to the forefront in 2021. GlobalBees is already in the process of integrating 10+ digitally native brands in the country.
SoftBank Investment Advisers Operating Partner Vikas Agnihotri said India is at the cusp of a D2C revolution with an estimated market size of $200 billion in the next 5 years.
“Indian brands have shown great promise in the recent years, and we believe that GlobalBees is building great assets to accelerate the growth of digitally native brands in the country,” said Vikas Agnihotri.
Chiratae Ventures India Founder Chairman said GlobalBees presents a unique technology platform to consolidate D2C Brands and massively scale them in India and the world. “Chiratae is excited to support and invest in GlobalBees,“ said Sudhir Sethi.
Premji Invest’s Atul Gupta said Globalbees is deepening Premji Invest’s partnership with Firstcry and is a strong validation of confidence in the founders.
About GlobalBees
GlobalBees is building a digital consumer product ecosystem that transforms marketplace sellers into international brands loved by millions. The company invests in, acquires, and grows seller businesses across Amazon, Flipkart & other marketplaces.
The company has offices in Delhi and Bangalore and will leverage the presence of FirstCry in International market for both sourcing and distribution. The company is looking to partner with companies that have built products based on unique consumer insights.
