The online baby products retailer FirstCry may soon secure investments from Alibaba, SoftBank
October 25, 2018
FirstCry (Brainbees Solutions Pvt. Ltd.), the Pune-based baby and maternity care products e-retailer is about to raise capital worth about USD 150 million (Rs. 1100 crores approx.) in a new round of funding. The brand is in talks with the Chinese multinational conglomerate Alibaba, Japan-headquartered multinational SoftBank Group Corp. and a few others to acquire financial capital to fortify its market value.
In June, it was reported in the media that FirstCry was to acquire capital from the Singaporean holdings company Temasek Holdings; the Chinese investment holdings firm Tencent and also another Chinese investment firm, however, it couldn’t materialize.
Since the time of its inception, FirstCry has acquired more than USD 100 million from Mahindra Group, IDG Ventures India, New Enterprise Associates, SAIF Partners, Vertex Ventures and a few others to name. This retailer is Asia’s largest online portal and that has been blooming well despite competition from the leading online shopping platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart.
Founded in the year 2010 by Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha, FirstCry offers a varied array of products from a lot of global brands such as Funskool, Hotwheels, Medela, Pampers, Disney etc. The company has expanded its reach and presence over these period of years as it has over 300+ stores in 125 cities. In 2016, FirstCry had bought Mahindra’s babycare business BabyOye for about Rs. 362 crores. This acquisition had further bolstered up its foothold as a leader and has been adding several stores to its network all this while.
