Thrasio-style GlobalBees raises $150m Series A round from SoftBank, Lightspeed, others

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GlobalBees, which wants to build a house of online brands, said on July 19 that it has raised a $150 million Series A round led by FirstCry, its investors and new investor Lightspeed India.

FirstCry’s investors- SoftBank, Premji Invest, Chiratae Ventures and ChrysCapital have all invested in the venture which will be run by FirstCry CEO Supam Maheshwari and former Edelweiss Financial Services President Nitin Agarwal. The $150 million is split equally between equity and debt.

With the largest Series A round in Indian startup history, GlobalBees aims to acquire digitally native brands across categories like beauty, personal care, home, kitchen, food, nutrition, sports, lifestyle etc. with a revenue rate of $1-20 million.

"GlobalBees aims to unleash the power of product innovation by Indian entrepreneurs and strategically partner with them to help them realize the full potential of their brand and products. Apart from capital, GlobalBees brings in strategic capabilities across Marketing & Growth, Technology, Distribution, Sourcing, Branding, Warehousing, Logistics, R&D, Product Development and Operations- all things essential to rapidly scale the brands in the digital space,” CEO Agarwal said.

GlobalBees is attempting the model pioneered by US-based Thrasio, a three year old startup with revenues of over $500 million, profit of $100 million and a valuation of $3 billion. This model has caught fire in India, where over half a dozen startups are trying the same model.

Former Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan’s Mensa Brands raised $50 million from top VCs with a similar thesis, as did 10Club and others. Moneycontrol broke down the stakes involved here.

"India is at the cusp of a D2C revolution with an estimated market size of $200 billion in the next 5 years. Indian brands have shown great promise in recent years, and we believe that GlobalBees is building great assets to accelerate the growth of digitally native brands in the country,” Vikas Agnihotri, Operating Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers, said.

Agnihotri of Softbank, Harsha Kumar of Lightspeed, Atul Gupta of Premji Invest, Sudhir Sethi of Chiratae Ventures and Kshitij Sheth of ChrysCapital will join the GlobalBees board.