Bengaluru-based 10club, an aggregator of third-party sellers on ecommerce platforms, has raised $40 million (nearly Rs 300 crore) in an outsized seed funding round.
The round was co-led by Bengaluru based consumer sector focused venture capital firm Fireside Ventures and an undisclosed international investor active in the space.
The round also saw participation from US-based ecommerce aggregator HeyDay, PDS international, Class 5 Global, Secocha Ventures led by Sanket Parekh, boAt founders Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta (in their individual capacities) and several other global strategic investors, the company said in a statement.
The capital raised will be used primarily to expand 10club’s portfolio of brands, investing in building its technology stack, and for working capital purposes.
As part of the deal, Vinay Singh, partner at Fireside Ventures, will join the 10club board.
The investment in 10Club comes amidst of rash of investor bets in this market on startups that are looking to replicate the ecommerce model made popular by Thrasio, a Massachusetts based startup that acquires and scales up popular third-party sellers on ecommerce platforms and is now valued at more than $1 billion.
Last month, former Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan threw his hat into the ring with the launch of Mensa Brands, raising a $50 million Series A funding round from investors such as Accel, Norwest Venture Partners and Falcon Edge Capital.
Founded in October 2020 by former Lamudi CEO Bhavna Suresh, 22feet co-founder Deepak Nair and Class 5 Global co-founder Joel Ayala, 10club partners with ecommerce product sellers by acquiring their businesses and working with their teams to help them grow.
“We have already built our foundational pillars of the centralised platform with a strong leadership team, a partner ecosystem and an operational playbook to deliver high performance. The potential to catalyse the entrepreneur, scale their business and thereby build a formidable portfolio under the 10club umbrella is immense. This funding will enable us to expand our portfolio and bring about transformational changes for the businesses we acquire,” Suresh said.
The 20-people team of 10club includes ecommerce executives from companies such as Amazon, Flipkart, Udaan, Reliance and Coca Cola.
“India and online-first brands are at the cusp of the next revolution. We, at Fireside, believe that both VC and acquisition driven model will co-exist going forward and can turbocharge the growth of early-stage brands. Together with the team at 10club, we will be able to drive this change and enable e-commerce entrepreneurs to realise the full potential of their brands,” Fireside’s Singh said.
Launched in 2017, Fireside Ventures is a multi-stage venture firm, with $170 million in assets under management with investments across the early and growth stages. The firm invests in digital-first consumer brands across sectors such as food and beverages, beauty and personal care, healthcare, neutraceuticals, lifestyle and home products.
