GOAT Brand Labs scoops up $50 Mn in Series A1 round

D2C brand aggregator GOAT Brand Labs has secured $50 million in funding as part of their Series A1 round. This round saw participation from new investors Winter Capital, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Vivriti Capital and Oxyzo and other existing investors.

Oxyzo is the lending arm of OfBusiness which turned unicorn in March this year. According to Entrackr’s sources, Oxyzo has put debt in more than two dozen startups.

In July 2021, GOAT had raised $36 million in its maiden institutional round from Tiger Global Management, Flipkart Ventures and Mayfield. Its existing investors also include Nordstar, Better Capital and a clutch of angels such as Ranjan Pai, Sujeet Kumar, Virendra Gupta, Alex Kuruvilla and Vikram Rao.

GOAT is a marketplace roll-up platform which acquires direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands and scale them with its expertise. The company claims that its portfolio has achieved nearly 85% surge in scale after acquisitions with profitability. The company has completed 15 acquisitions including Abhishti, Doggie Dabbas, Frangipani, Hipkoo The Label Life, Voylla and Leafy tales since its inception in mid-2021.

The company is in advanced discussions with another 12 brands in the next couple of weeks.

Founded by Rishi Vasudev and Rameswar Misra, GOAT focuses on brands in fashion, beauty, personal care, and home and kitchen spaces. Vasudev had previously headed Flipkart’s Fashion along with Myntra and Jabong for more than five years while Rameshwar was a part of Voonik’s management team which merged with Bangaladesh-based ShopUp in  February 2020.

Akin to Thrasio, Perch and Branded in the US, GOAT helps D2C companies with process optimization, growth hacking, demand planning, expansion and marketing.

GOAT competes with two unicorns in this space: GlobalBees and Mensa Brands along with 10club, Evenflow and Powerhouse91. According to Mensa, it has raised $300 million in equity and debt round whereas Nitin Agarwal and Supam Maheshwari-led GlobalBees has raised more than $260 million across two funding rounds.