Mumbai Angels has invested an undisclosed amount in Intrends Skin Solutions Pvt Ltd, a marketing and distribution company for cosmetics. The firm is involved in bringing international cosmetic and beauty products to India at affordable prices. It currently has a tie-up with an international brand Eyes, Lips and Face.
"Our model is to partner with international brands to bring the right products for the Indian consumer in terms of quality and value," says Naveen Bhavanishankar, founder and CEO of Intrends.
The firm says that the Indian beauty and lifestyle market is not serviced well and it is trying to fill that gap. Bhavanishankar has worked in a Fortune-500 company in various roles of engineering, marketing and product management.
Business Model
Intrends essentially imports cosmtic items through a licensing agreement and sells them to Indian retailers. The price that it charges accounts for its marketing and distribution cost, and the retailer have their own margins. "Its a pretty standard industry model. Its just that what we are offering is very different," said Bhavanishankar.
Intrend believes that its core competence would lie in finding the right product for the Indian consumer. "Our target market is middle of the pyramid people looking for better life as income rises," added Bhavanishankar.
Intrends plans to use the funds for expansion and hiring key people. It presently has a team of more than 100 people.
Intrends has a presence in three states now - Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. "We have concentrated only in few regional levels," said Bhavanishankar. "We want to get our business model right in the regions we are in. We want to understand how the Indian consumers work and then apply that to the whole market," he explained.
Mumbai Angels, a network of angel investors with some 15-odd active members, has invested in companies like Apalya (mobile TV), AtYourPrice.in (distressed inventory travel website), Canvera (digital photo), Textual Analytics Solutions (text mining), and mKhoj ( mobile advertising), which earlier this year raised $7.1 million from Sherpalo Ventures and KPCB.