Homegrown bicycle brand Frog has raised funding from venture capital firm Avaana Capital and Titan Capital, an investment arm of Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal.
The Mumbai-based firm didn’t disclose the amount it raised. However, it is believed to be around $2 million (Rs 15 crore).
Frog, which previously raised funds from Fireside Ventures, said it will use the fresh capital to launch electric bicycles and set up manufacturing facility having a production capacity of 1 million cycles per year.
Frog, operated by AlphaVector Pvt. Ltd, was founded in 2015 by Sachin Chopra, who is also the CEO of the firm. Previously, Chopra worked with PE firm Everstone Capital.
The company is present in 250 cities through 600 retail points across the country. It also sells bicycles through e-commerce platforms for both men and women and caters to niche segments with its ‘character bikes.’
AlphaVector also seeks to raise an additional $8-10 million in the near future to support its growth plans. It had posted net sales of Rs 25 crore during the fiscal year 2018-19 as against Rs 15 crore a year before. However, the company slipped into loss during 2018-19 after remaining profitable since its launch, as per VCCEdge, the financial data platform of Mosaic Digital.
Investors
Anjali Bansal, founder at Avaana Capital, had set up the firm more than a year after quitting TPG Growth, the mid-market investment platform of US-based private equity firm TPG.
In August 2018, VCCircle reported that Avaana hired Ashish Agrawal, a founding member of investment firm India Alternatives, as managing director.
VCCircle also reported that Avaana was targeting a corpus of $100 million to back companies in consumer and financial services segments. In the past, it had backed online insurance aggregator Coverfox and digital lending platform LoanTap.
Titan Capital, on the other hand, seeks to invest in entrepreneurs and startups looking to create a wide-scale positive impact on India and the rest of the world.
Firms that Titan Capital has invested in the recent past include women’s wellness startup Azah, real gaming startup Rein Games, male grooming startup Beardo, direct-to-farmer mobile-based retail platform AgroStar, and Gurugram-based automobile servicing platform GoMechanic.
*This article has been updated to add the estimated deal size.