SUMMARY
Mylo raised the funds from W Health Ventures, ITC Ltd and Endiya Partners
Riverwalk Holdings, Alteria Capital and Innoven Capital also participated in Mylo’s Series B round, taking the total fund raised by the startup to $24 Mn
Mylo also plans to provide healthcare services to mothers, like providing doctor consultations, health packages for weight loss and PCOS, and hospital recommendations for delivery/IVF procedures
While the idiom ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ is widely popular, the pre, during and post-pregnancy care for women in India is highly unorganised. Catering to the wide gap by providing a community platform for new and expecting mothers, Delhi-NCR-based Mylo helps mothers track and talk about their pregnancy and baby’s development.
To further broaden its position as a one-stop solution for mother and baby care, Mylo has raised $17 Mn in its Series B funding round led by W Health Ventures, ITC Ltd and Endiya Partners. The round also saw participation from Riverwalk Holdings, Alteria Capital and Innoven Capital.
With this, it has raised $24 Mn till date.
The startup plans to use the funds to scale the brand and its community, build newer product verticals and launch digital health solutions for mothers.
Launched by Vinit Garg in 2018, Mylo started as a community of new and expecting mothers who could track their baby’s development, read content on 500+ topics and ask questions to other mothers about problems they might be facing.
In 2021, it forayed into the personal care segment, offering 100+ SKUs (stock-keeping units) of Ayurveda and daily essential products that were based on its community feedback and vetted by an in-house R&D team. Till date, Mylo has sold over seven lakh units, shipping to over 16K pin codes in India via an online presence on major marketplaces.
With a vision to create a one-stop solution for mother and baby care, the startup now plans to enter the healthcare services segment. It has already started testing some of the services, like providing doctor consultations with gynaecologists and paediatricians, health packages for weight loss and PCOS, and hospital recommendations for delivery/IVF procedures.
However, Mylo is still mulling over the name of the new vertical, Garg told Inc42.
But, as Garg puts it, all of its offerings have reached its community of 4 Mn users via minimal marketing efforts. Now, the startup wants to build a brand identity, and scale its community and products verticals, along with launching digital health solutions for mothers.
Need For Mother & Baby Care Community
An expecting mother faces several challenges, including lack of availability of authentic information, experience sharing by other moms and moral support from other mothers.
Most information and conversation is today available on Instagram, Facebook or Reddit, but it lacks the one-on-one dedicated space for mothers to talk openly, without facing any restrictions or hindrances.
The mom and baby segment is a $5 Bn market in India. However, the category penetration is only 15%. Therefore, many startups have ventured into the content-to-commerce space in this segment. Most recently, MyGlamm Group added Naiyya Saggi’s BabyChakra to its content-to-commerce portfolio. Mylo’s new investor ITC also backs baby and mother care brand Mother Sparsh.
In the same stream, the Mommy Network is a prominent community of expecting mothers. SHEROES backs the women’s community network of Babygogo, while several content pieces are available on D2C platforms such as Tinystep, BabyBerry, Firstcry, BabyOye and HopScotch, among others.
Mylo’s Playbook – From Content To Commerce
Currently, a mother has to navigate various platforms for shopping for herself and the toddler, to have meaningful conversations with other mothers and experts about problems catering to mood swings, breastfeeding, diets and nutrition, and avail professional services related to pregnancy.
Mylo aims to address this gap by creating a super app for mothers and baby care. The Mylo family of brands consists of D2C brands Mylo Care (skin and hair care for the mother), Mylo Veda (Ayurveda range of oils, washes, scrubs and creams) and Mylo Essentials (range of diapers, maternity and baby dresses, and baby lotions, etc), Garg told Inc42.
Besides, its pregnancy and baby companion social community of 4 Mn+ users is growing at an average of 300K+ users every month. On it, women can get conceiving, pregnancy and parenting guides for other mothers.
The startup is available on the web as well via the Mylo pregnancy and parenting Android or iOS app.
From baby names to nutrition for a healthy baby, from pregnancy yoga to understanding the pregnancy (conception to postpartum) journey, from talking about PCOS or postpartum depression to knowing when the baby will start crawling, Mylo’s community of mothers offer all sorts of advice. One can ask questions that one may feel that she/they can’t wait to ask the doctor and get them answered by a community of experienced mothers.
Mylo’s app also offers an ovulation tracker, a due date tracker, a baby growth tracker, a contraction timer, guides on pregnancy scans and tests, creating a budget for the baby’s delivery, charting horoscopes and other astrological aspects of a baby’s birth, among others.
The Road Ahead: Taking Baby Steps To Spread Wings
Mylo’s platform is currently available in English and Hindi, and it plans to add more languages to increase its reach. It also plans to onboard influencers and market the product via social channels. The mother care brand will also add toddler-specific products, for which it is currently in testing mode.
“Other D2C brands have to go through a sampling exercise via third party brands. But Mylo already has a community of users who trust the brand, who help us refine our products,” Garg mentioned.
“Once our products are well refined with our community’s input, we are able to scale them with confidence. We just need to find the right marketing channels and that’s what the money is going to be used for now,” he concluded.
