US-Based Thrasio Earmarks $500 Mn For Foray In India; Starts With Lifelong Online Acquisition

Massachusetts, US-based Thrasio, which pioneered the concept of acquiring small brands and collaborating with them to scale, may enter the Indian market with its first local acquisition of Delhi NCR-based home appliances startup Lifelong Online.

According to an ET report, the acquisition is valued between $30 Mn and $50 Mn.

Meanwhile, Thrasio has earmarked $500 Mn for acquisitions in India, and it might run the India operation through Lifelong Online, the report added.

Founded in 2015 by Bharat Kalia and later joined by Varun Grover and Atul Raheja, Lifelong Online offers a wide range of products in the home, kitchen, grooming, and lifestyle categories.

The startup claims to have a monthly revenue of INR 40-50 Cr during peak sales. According to the company’s website, Lifelong has 6 factories in India, producing 60% of its SKUs (stock-keeping units) and generating 50% of its revenue.

Lifelong counts Tanglin Ventures — an early-stage venture fund backed by Udaan cofounder Sujeet Kumar and Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy — as its sole investor. Tanglin, which holds a 20% share in the lifestyle startup is expected to exit post the acquisition by Thrasio.

According to Morgan Stanley estimates, India’s ecommerce industry is pegged to reach $200 Bn by 2027. Among the largest ecommerce platforms in India, Amazon India claims to have 850K+ vendors while Flipkart has 350K+ sellers, a plausible market for companies such as Thrasio.

The D2C market, on the other hand, according to an Inc42 Plus report, has over 800 D2C brands and is expected to exceed a $100 Bn market valuation by 2026.

In the last year, India has seen the rise of several Thrasio styled ventures that are banking on the rising D2C wave. Some of these include Supam Maheshwari’s FirstCry’s Global Bees, Ananth Narayanan’s Mensa Brands, Rishi Vasudev’s GOAT Brand Labs, Utsav Agarwal & Pulkir Chhabra’s Evenflow, Bhavana Suresh’s 10Club, Presight Capital-backed Upscalio, and FJ Labs-backed Powerhouse91.

Testament to the rising Thrasio-style acquisitions, in the last 15 days, 10club has acquired two brands already — sports and fitness equipment brand, Skudgear and baby products brand My Newborn.

Founded in 2018 by Carlos Cashman and Joshua Silberstein, and backed by Advent International, PEAK6 Investments, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Oaktree Capital among others, Thrasio acquires third-party private label Amazon FBA businesses and direct-to-consumer (D2C) ecommerce brands.

After the acquisition of the small (and majorly everyday needs-based) businesses, Thrasio optimises and operates the acquired brands to expand their reach through marketing, product development, supply chain management, and wholesale expansion.

From finances to operations, Thrasio claims to have an average 156% annualised EBITDA growth from its portfolio of 150+ brands, managing the scale of 22K+ category products.

The startup is currently operational in the US, the UK, Denmark, Japan and China.