Thrasio, Perch and Branded have gained prominence in the US in the past two years as they closed mega financing rounds on the promise of scaling up many direct to consumer brands on popular marketplaces like Amazon. Their model appears to have caught on in India with over half a dozen such clones closing funding at rich valuations in their maiden rounds.
After Mensa and 10Club’s mega funding rounds, GlobalBees has burst into the club with a record $150 million raise in its Series A round led by FirstCry. Lightspeed also participated in the round.
According to the company, it has raised $75 million in equity and $75 million in debt. Vikas Agnihotri, Harsha Kumar, Atul Gupta, Sudhir Sethi and Kshitij Sheth have joined GlobalBees’s board of directors, the company said in a statement.
The appointment of these people as directors confirms that SoftBank, Premji Invest, Chiratae Ventures and Chrys Capital also participated in this financing round, being the respective parent organisations of these newest directors on the GlobalBee board.
Much like the US firms it is seemingly looking to clone, GlobalBees aims to partner with direct to consumer brands having a revenue rate of $1 to 20 million across categories such as beauty, personal care, home, kitchen, food, lifestyle among others.
Besides capital, the company would also help brands in marketing, supply chain, R&D and operations. And the e-commerce platform of course.
Founded by Supam Maheshwari and Nitin Agarwal, GlobalBees claims to be in the process of acquiring and growing over 10 direct to consumer brands.
Over the past six months, around half a dozen firms with a similar model (e-commerce roll out)have raised funds. The list includes Powerhouse91 and Evenflow. Meanwhile, Goat Brands Labs, a similar startup launched by former Flipkart executive Rishi Vasudev, is reportedly in talks to raise about $20 million in its first round.
With its record fundraise, GlobalBees finds itself in the company of Ola Electric and Mensa, to make up the top 3 series A raises ever in India. These two had Series A closures of $56 million and $50 million respectively.
