Vertex, IDG, SAIF invest $15m in India’s FirstCry

Apart from the online store, Brainbees also operates FirstCry-branded franchisee stores. It began the move to offline in 2011 and now has 50 stores across 45 cities. The company acts as a wholesaler to the franchise store owners, which helps take products to tier III towns where customers are less likely to shop online.

Brainbees owns four warehouses in Pune, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai and also operates a supply-chain and logistics network.

FirstCry's product catalogue includes a range of consumables such as diapers and toiletries, accessories such as strollers, apparel and footwear as well as books and toys for children up to the age of 15 years. FirstCry offers over 70,000 products from more than 500 national and international brands.

Joo Hock Chua, managing director and CIO of Vertex, will join the board of the company."We have been highly impressed with FirstCry's dominance in the online baby and kids market and look forward to leveraging our experience and expertise in hybrid online-offline business models from our investments and direct presence in other growing markets in Asia to help grow the company aggressively," he said in a statement.

Vertex's portfolio companies that use the online-offline business model include Chinese furniture e-commerce company Meilele and LOHO Eyewear.

Brainbees started operations in late 2010 and a raised $4 million Series A round from SAIF in April 2011. IDG Ventures India joined SAIF in a $14 million Series B funding in February 2012.

In the baby and kidswear category FirstCry competes with Babyoye, the Accel Partners and Tiger Global backed website which merged with Helion Ventures Partners' Hoopos.com last year.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Consumer
• India
• Consumer
• IDG Ventures
• SAIF Partners
• Temasek Holdings