The Queen of D2C: FirstCry's GlobalBees
New era, new ways of doing business. There's a D2C model in town that's capturing market, pockets and hearts. How did it come to be, and what's this new GlobalBees?
The successful team of unicorn FirstCry has made history once again. Their new venture, GlobalBees has raised $150 million in just three months, making it one of the largest Series A funding in India!
Aah. GlobalBees must be doing something really out-of-the-box, right?
Well, it has something to do with D2C (direct to consumer) brands. To truly appreciate GlobalBees' ambitions, let’s first understand how D2C has evolved in India.
Evolution of D2C Brands
Being a brand owner in the pre-e-commerce era used to be a herculean job. If you wanted your products to be sold far and wide, you would be required to have a large network of wholesalers and distributors. Branding, promotions, and consumer feedback in the pre-social media era must have been a nightmare too.
Anyone wishing to start their own product label and go big was required to have a war-chest of resources. Scaling up a local brand was tough.
But, e-commerce disrupted the space. Brand owners could scale faster, without relying on middle-men. They could also get feedback directly from the end consumers, which helped them further their innovation.
Initially, there was skepticism and hesitation to adapt. But gradually, the brand owners started warming up to this idea. And the likes of Amazon and Flipkart were giving wings to those who wanted to set their flight in the D2C space. MamaEarth, Sugar, Lenskart, Zivame became some of the famous D2C brands in the country. The market has grown so much that the size of D2C brands is expected to grow to $200 bn in the next 5 years.
This became the opportunity for growth of another business model.
The new business model
Acquisition of D2C brands and scaling them up.
Yes, that's what GlobalBees does.
FirstCry’s founder, Supam Maheshwari, who has had massive success in enabling several local brands on FirstCry’s platform is now taking things a step further with his new venture.
GlobalBees acquires, partners with or invests in native D2C brands (beauty, personal care, home and furniture, sports) who have a revenue of $1 million to $20 million.
But, why acquire brands that have already grown so big?
Because after reaching a certain stage, it becomes difficult to further scale these D2C businesses. Ventures like GlobalBees are not like your traditional next-door investors. They put their hands in every area of business and operations. From product innovation to marketing, logistics to strategic planning, everything.
But, GlobalBees is not the first of its kind.
It is fashioned like Thrasio in the US that acquires private sellers on Amazon and helps scale them. It became the fastest profitable US company to reach a $1 billion valuation.
The D2C boom arrived in the US much earlier than it did in India, but we are catching up. Ventures like 10Club have raised $40 million in seed funding (highest ever amount raised in seed funding in India).
Do you think the new clan of investors such as GlobalBees and 10CLub can help scale the D2C businesses in the country and replicate Thrasio-like success?
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