GlobalBees Brands Pvt Ltd, a Thrasio-style direct-to-consumer (D2C) venture that aggregates and invests in e-commerce brands, has added three more startups to its portfolio list.
The company has picked up a majority stake in Healthyhey (dietary supplements maker), Rey Naturals(hair care products brand) and Intellilens(eyewear brand) for undisclosed amounts. This takes the total acquisitions to eight in just 4-5 months.
Nitin Agarwal, CEO at GlobalBees, said they invested in Healthyhey, Rey Naturals and Intellilens, because the companies had a "promising growth trajectory along with a proven business model".
Global Bees has earlier this month onboarded Yellow Chimes, a leading fashion jewellery brand, and Absorbia, an innovative home care brand, to its portfolio.
Prior to that, it had invested in homegrown millennial skincare brand - Prolixr, women's health solutions company - &ME, and home care products company - The Better Home - in August this year, this will take its total acquisitions to 8 in just four months.
In the next three years, GlobalBees is aiming to invest in 100 brands across verticals, including fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), sports, home organisation, and lifestyle.
Healthyhey Nutrition, launched in 2016 by Rishi Modi, a nutritionist, offers dietary supplements, sports nutrition and nutritional supplements for different age groups of people. The company claims to be having more than 250 varieties of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, amino, herbal extract, proteins and collagen-based supplements
Rey Naturals, an Ahmedabad-based startup, offers natural hair care products such as cold pressed oils that are extracted from nuts and seeds and essential oils extracted from plants, flowers, fruits & roots. The four-year-old company is said to be catering to over 10 lakh customers.
Intellilens, a Mumbai-based eyewear brand, was founded by Robin Lobo in 2018. The brand’s products are used by over 2 lakh users for protection against harmful UV rays emanating from smartphones, laptops and other digital devices.
GlobalBees was founded earlier this year by FirstCry founder Supam Maheshwari and a former executive at Edelweiss Financial Services, Nitin Agarwal, with a corpus of $75 million.
In July, it raised $150 million in a mix of equity and debt this July. The round was led by FirstCry and also got Lightspeed Venture Partners as a new investor. Other investors in the round included Vikas Agnihotri of SoftBank, Harsha Kumar of Lightspeed, Atul Gupta of PremjiInvest, Sudhir Sethi of Chiratae Ventures and Kshitij Sheth of ChrysCapital.
GlobalBees, which aims to buy and consolidate brands that sell online as per a model popularised by US-based Thrasio, aims to invest in around 30-35 brands ranging from various D2C categories to fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and more. The company is looking forward to buying and consolidating brands, helping the brands scale and transform their digital impression. GlobalBees is planning to invest in over 20 brands within this financial year itself.
It plans to partner with digitally native brands across categories such as beauty and personal care, home, kitchen, food, nutrition, sports, and lifestyle, with a revenue rate of $1 million to $20 million.
Besides making strategic investments, GlobalBees also plans to help the brands scale and diversify their digital footprint through D2C channels. It further aims to support product development, branding and other key activities such as warehousing and logistics.
Among other Thrasio-style ventures in India, Myntra and Medlife executive Ananth Narayanan-founded Mensa Brands also attracted funds of around $50 million as part of its Series A funding round led by Accel, Falcon Edge Capital and Norwest Venture Partners earlier in May.
In August, UpScalio raised $42.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Presight Capital and an undisclosed global hedge fund.
Other aggregators of third-party sellers on ecommerce platforms, such as GOAT, Powerhouse91 and 10Club, among others have also raised funds capitalising this space recently.
