SUMMARY
Flipkart Ventures, Mayfield, Nordstart, Better Capital along with several angel investors participated in the round
GOAT Brands Labs is in talks to acquire 10 brands
The Bengaluru-based company raised $20 Mn in May this year
GOAT Brands Labs – a Bengaluru based startup that helps D2C brands grow – on Monday (July 26) announced to have raised $36 Mn in its Series A round led by Tiger Global with participation from Flipkart Ventures, Mayfield, Nordstar and Better Capital. Other angel investors who also participated in the round were Virender Gupta of DailyHunt, Udaan’s Sujit Kumar, Dr. Ranjan Pai of Manipal Group, among others.
Following Thrasio-model GOAT is in advanced discussions with at least 10 brands for acquisition and would be announcing the same shortly. They are looking at brands in fashion, beauty, personal care, and home & kitchen in the first phase.
The Thrasio model is named after Massachusetts-based startup Thrasio which is at present valued in the range between $3 – $4 Bn. The ecommerce company started consolidating third-party sellers on Amazon in the US and helped them to scale further.
Founded by Rishi Vasudev headed – Flipkart’s Fashion (Flipkart and Myntra) and worked as CEO of brands and retailers – and Rameswar Misra, who was co-founder of Menswear brand Turms bagged $20 Mn from Tiger Global along with participation from Mayfield and Flipkart’s Venture Fund.
Commenting on the latest development Vasudev said, “G.O.A.T stands for Greatest of All Time. Through this venture, we are bringing together passionate entrepreneurs, their D2C brands, marquee investors, industry experts and a dynamic team, who believe in the philosophy of partnering and nurturing. We want these brands to have access to the best resources so that they scale rapidly to become G.O.A.T s”.
He added that G.O.A.T will fuel exponential growth of D2C brands across all channels – marketplaces, brand’s e-commerce platforms, offline retail, and global markets too, by providing them a tech enabled platform for end-to-end integration replete with deep digital marketing expertise. G.O.A.T’s integrated platform will help the brands maintain high efficiency and gain from economies of scale.
Misra said that the post pandemic world will see a boom in ecommerce penetration in India and there will be an opportunity for bigger and more organized brands and sellers. He further said that GOAT aims to be a reliable partner for these brands and sellers by providing them tech-driven solutions to scale quickly.
