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Baby and mother care brand, Mamaearth, has raised $1 Mn in a funding round led by VC firm Fireside Ventures and a few other investors. This marks the company’s second round of funding. The latest investment will go into launching ‘Traditional Recipes’, a new range of wellness solutions for mothers including herbal teas and supplements. A portion of the financing will allow Mamaearth to enter more categories with safer and healthier products for babies and mothers. The baby and mother care company is also planning to use the funding to fuel innovation. The team at Mamaearth is currently working to develop safe natural solutions to problems ranging from lactation to baby colic. Commenting on the development, Kanwaljit Singh, founder of Fireside Ventures, said, “The trend of toxin free proposition is around a decade old globally but already there are brands which are valued at more than billion dollars like The Honest Company. Seventh Generation recently acquired by Unilever for around $700 Mn also has a similar proposition. Mamaearth being founded by parents having the right category & business experience makes it a clear differentiator and that has helped us support the brand from day 1.” Mamaearth Working To Grow User Base To 200K By 2018 Founded by Varun and Ghazal Alagh in 2016, Mamaearth offers 20 different toxin-free products, including personal care and wellness items, geared towards reducing parenting stress. As stated by Varun, all products under the brand go through multiple testing processes including clinical dermatology testing in Europe before being commercially available. In the last eight months, Mamaearth claims to have sold more than 50K units. All Mamaearth products are available on major ecommerce sites like Amazon, Flipkart, Firstcry, Nykaa, BabyChakra and across baby stores in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The company recently launched products for lactation, stress relief and postpartum weight loss under the ‘Traditional Recipes’ banner for new moms. According to Ghazal, with the ‘Traditional Recipes’ label, Mamaearth is looking to provide trusted natural remedies in easy to consume formats. Speaking about the objective behind the ‘Traditional Recipes’ launch, Ghazal added, “Our team is extremely excited to bring these inspiring organic, safe & healthy products both for moms and babies. We all have strong beliefs in our culture and such natural recipes which have been trusted for centuries. We strongly believe these will help solve many mama problems in a healthy & natural way. It’s important that during child care we give equal deserving care to the mother too and that is what Mamaearth is all about. With this new infusion of funds there will be many more solutions that will follow.” Currently serving a community of 20,000 parents, the baby and mother care brand, Mamaearth, is gearing up to expand its user base to around 200K by the end of 2018, Varun revealed. He said, “The round isn't done yet and we will have more partners by the time we close the round fully. ” Fireside Ventures: Building An Investment Portfolio Of 30 FMCG Startups An early-stage VC firm, Fireside Ventures primarily backs non-tech consumer and FMCG startups. Started by former Helion Venture Partners senior Managing Director Kanwaljit Singh in 2014, the firm recently secured backing for its maiden fund from some of India’s top family offices including Wipro promoter Azim Premji’s PremjiInvest, consumer goods maker Marico’s Mariwala, and the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. It had earlier raised $27.9 Mn (INR 180 Cr) to invest in early-stage startups in the FMCG space. Fireside Ventures is aiming to raise a total of $46.5 Mn (INR 300 Cr) within six months. The VC firm has been especially active in recent times. In the third week of August, for instance, Fireside led a $2.3 Mn Pre-Series A funding round in Delhi-based male grooming startup Bombay Shaving Company. Existing investors S Ramadorai, former CEO at TCS; Pankaj Gupta, supply director at USL Diageo, and senior executives at McKinsey & Co. also participated in the round. In July, Bengaluru-based online interior design startup Design Cafe raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a round led by Fireside Ventures. Other participants in the round include existing investor Apurva Salarpuria, angel investor Sidharth Pansari, and Sprout Capital. In January this year, the VC firm invested in online tea brand Vahdam Teas along with Mumbai Angels Network and Singapore Angel Network. Last year, it had backed Bengaluru-based on-demand online coffee shop, DropKaffe. It also invested in Delhi-based Indulge Beverages, maker of premium tea and coffee capsules under brand Bonhomia in 2015. The latest $1 Mn funding from Fireside Ventures will allow baby and mother care startup Mamaearth to embark on a path of innovation and expansion through the development of new products for parents and babies.

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