FirstCry offers 1,200 national and international brands with over 90,000 unique products. The range serves the needs of children ranging from new born to six years.
New Delhi: Baby products retailer FirstCry on Thursday said it has raised an undisclosed amount in a fresh round of funding by Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons Ltd.
Brainbees Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which runs FirstCry, has in the past raised $69 million in multiple rounds from investors, including early stage venture capital firm IDG Ventures India, SAIF Partners, San Francisco-based Valiant Capital and venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA), among others.
The company was started by Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha in 2010 and is an omni-channel platform for baby and maternity products in India. It currently operates over 150 franchisee offline stores across 100 cities in the country, besides its online store. It has also partnered with 7,000 maternity hospitals across the country.
“Our vision is to simplify parenting by creating the necessary eco-system. A positive nod from a business leader of Ratan Tata’s stature is a great vote of confidence in the way we have created the eco-system and validation of the business approach leading to definitive path to profitability,” said Maheshwari, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Brainbees.
The company offers 1,200 national and international brands with over 90,000 unique products. The range serves the needs of children ranging from new born to six years.
“As early investors in Brainbees, we have seen the company grow at a tremendous pace. Their omni-channel approach will continue enabling them to build a disruptive and rapidly scalable model,” said Sudhir Sethi, founder, chairman and managing director of IDG Ventures India, who is on the board of Brainbees.
Tata has invested in over 20 home-grown start-ups, including online marketplace Snapdeal (Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd), digital wallet provider Paytm (One97 Communications Ltd), cab hailing service Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd), data analytics company Tracxn Technologies Pvt. Ltd, online pet supplies store Dogspot.in (PetsGlam Services Pvt. Ltd) and online lingerie store Zivame (Actoserba Active Wholesale Pvt. Ltd) in the past 18 months.
[“source-Livemint”]