Premji Invest leads $111m round for India's GlobalBees
GlobalBees, an India-based platform that agglomerates technology-enabled emerging consumer brands, has raised USD 111.5m in Series B funding at a valuation of USD 1.1bn.
Premji Invest led the round with participation from Steadview Capital and existing investors such as SoftBank, Lightspeed India Partners, Chiratae Ventures, and FirstCry. There was also a USD 30m contribution from venture debt provider Trifecta Capital. FirstCry led a USD 150m Series A – said to comprise equity and debt in equal parts – in July 2021.
"With this investment, we are well set up to become India’s largest brand platform," Nitin Aggarwal, CEO of GlobalBees, told The Economic Times. "We are in august company of exceptional founders who have built great companies online. With this infusion of capital, we can work together to take these companies global.”
The company plans to invest in more than 100 direct-to-consumer brands over the next three years. It has previously claimed there are over 5,000 potential targets. Eight brands are listed on the GlobalBees website, including jewellery retailer Yellow Chimes, haircare specialist Rey Naturals, supplements provider Healthy Hey, eyewear player Intellilens, and women’s wellness brand AndMe.
GlobalBees is the second start-up to emerge from mother-and-baby retailer FirstCry, following e-commerce delivery platform Xpressbees. Amitava Saha and Supam Maheshwari, co-founders of FirstCry, launched Xpressbees in 2015, with Saha taking on the CEO role. Maheshwari established Globalbees alongside Agarwal, formerly president and group CIO of Edelweiss Financial.
SoftBank Vision Fund 1 and Chiratae are both investors in FirstCry. Chiratae is also among Xpressbees' backers.
GlobalBees targets brands that have gained initial momentum by selling through platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, and Myntra and offers capital and expertise to help them scale. Mensa Brands, which was established by Myntra founder Ananth Narayanan, is pursuing a similar model. It became a unicorn last November on closing a USD 135m Series B led by Falcon Edge Capital.
The template for these start-ups is US-based Thrasio, which buys up small but profitable e-commerce businesses that sell through Amazon’s B2B service, Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA). This is chiefly financed through debt rather than equity. Venture debt providers are willing lenders because they get exposure to a diversified portfolio of assets and the profit is used to pay down the debt.
Founded in 2018, Thrasio achieved a USD 1bn pre-money valuation on closing a USD 260m Series C round in July 2020. It was, at the time, the fastest US start-up to achieve unicorn status. The company was valued at USD 5-10bn last October when Silver Lake and Advent International led an all-equity Series D of over USD 1bn. Thrasio has more than 200 brands in its portfolio.
Singapore-headquartered Una Brands is looking to do the same thing on a pan-Asian level. The start-up secured USD 40m in seed funding – comprising equity and debt – in May 2021.
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