10club scores $40 Mn in seed round from Fireside Ventures and others

10club has raised $40 million in its seed round co-led by Fireside Ventures and an undisclosed investor active in the space. The round also saw participation from HeyDay, PDS international, Class 5 Global, Secocha Ventures, boAt founders Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta and several other global strategic investors.

The funding will primarily be used for expanding its portfolio of brands, investing in building its technology stack, and for working capital purposes, said the company in a press statement.

Based on the model of Thrasio, Perch and Branded, 10club acquires and scales third-party brands that sell on e-commerce marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart and Nykaa.

Founded by Bhavna Suresh, Deepak Nair and Joel Ayala, 10Club claims to have engaged with hundreds of sellers across specific product categories. According to the startup, it has signed LOIs worth $15 million and will push to operate these businesses in the coming weeks.

10Club is the fourth startup in this space to raise funds in 2021. Earlier this year, Powerhouse91 and most recently Mensa Brands and Evenflow raised their maiden funding rounds. 

Besides these companies, FirstCry is in the last leg to raise $75 million from SoftBank, TPG Capital, ChrysCapital and Premji Invest to mirror Thrasio. Goat Brands Labs, a similar startup launched by former Flipkart’s executive Rishi Vasudev, was reportedly in talks to raise about $20 million in its first round.

10Club has become the largest seed-funded startup in India, leaving startups such as Acko, CRED and INDmoney behind by a significant margin. Acko, CRED and INDmoney had raised $30 million each in their seed rounds. The top 10 list includes Jupiter, Uni, EpiFi, Velocity, Mosaic Wellness and Loco.

On Monday, video game streaming platform Loco had raised $9 million in its seed round led by Krafton, the distributor of PUBG in India and Lumikai.