The 90's kids would have never thought that when they become parents, they'll be able to shop the baby products online. But nor did anyone think that online shopping would be such a delight and would turn the world around. Taking the online shopping spree one step further, Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha founded FirstCry.com in 2010.
Read everything about FirstCry, how it was started, founders and team, growth, business model, challenges faced, funding, acquisitions and competitors.
FirstCry - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | FirstCry |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | Pune, India |
| Sector | Online Baby Products |
| Founders | Amitava Saha, Supam Maheshwari |
| Founded | September 2010 |
| Parent Organization | BrainBees Solutions Pvt Ltd. |
| Website | firstcry.com |
| Contact | customercare@firstcry.com |
About FirstCry and How it Works
Founders of FirstCry and team
How was FirstCry Started?
FirstCry - Startup Launch
FirstCry - Business Model and Revenue Model
FirstCry - Startup Challenges
FirstCry - Valuation
FirstCry - Funding and Investors
FirstCry - Acquisitions
FirstCry - Growth
FirstCry - Competitors
FirstCry - FAQs
StartupTalky
About FirstCry and How it Works
FirstCry.com is an online and offline brand providing a wide range of products for babies, kids, and moms. This startup was born out of a desire to solve the problem of millions of parents in India of not having access to the best brands and baby care products for their babies and kids. The product categories at FirstCry.com include diapering, feeding and nursing, skin and health care, toys, clothes, footwear, and fashion accessories and many more.
FirstCry.com has a product inventory of more than 90,000 items from around 1200 International and Indian brands leading the game in the baby care segment. These brands include multinational brands like Mattel, Ben10, Pigeon, Funskool, Hotwheels, Nuby, Farlin, Medela, Pampers, Disney, Barbie, Gerber, Fisher Price to only name a few.
The company provides best of the products and brands at the best prices with quality online shopping experience, fast and reliable delivery service, and a prompt customer care.
StartupTalky
Founders of FirstCry and team
FirstCry was co-founded by Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha.
Supam Maheshwari, CEO, and Co-founder - Supam is an IIM Ahmedabad graduate and an Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering. He is a first-generation entrepreneur and he has also co-founded XpressBees, one of the largest logistic companies in India. Before co-founding FirstCry.com, Supam was the co-founder and CEO of Brainvisa Technologies which is one of the largest e-Learning companies.
Amitava Saha, COO, and Co-founder - With a dazzling master's degree from IIM Lucknow and a B.Tech from IIT Varanasi, Saha together with Supam had co-founded XpressBees. Post this, they took another exciting venture, FirstCry.com which is India's finest online platform for baby care products.
How was FirstCry Started?
All of this started a decade ago when the options for buying baby care and kid's products online were really limited. And the co-founder and owner of FirstCry, Supam would buy things for his son from foreign countries while he was on business trips. This situation gave him this idea that there is a big opportunity in the Indian markets to launch an online platform that would give Indian parents access to the best baby care brands from across the globe. This is how FirstCry was started.
FirstCry - Startup Launch
FirstCry initially was just following an inventory-based model which means that they were just shipping products across the country from their warehouses in Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, and Kolkata. After a few years, they started adding retailers to their platform and presented an opportunity for local retailers to sell their products on the website.
The Company also has its private label called BabyHug which is into apparel for babies and kids and CuteWalk which is a footwear brand. To this date, Firstcry is one of the largest online shopping platforms for kids and has over 350 franchised brick & mortar shops across more than 100 cities in India.
StartupTalky
FirstCry - Business Model and Revenue Model
FirstCry works on an integrated hybrid business model which includes online platforms and offline stores. Apart from the massive online presence, the company also has over 100 franchise stores across India. They runs an extremely unique program where they reach over 70,000 unique parents each month by giving out a FirstCry Box.
This program gives free gift boxes to each new parent across 6,000 hospitals in the country as a token of congratulations on the birth of their child. This box contains basic necessities like diapers, baby lotion, baby oil, etc. from the leading global brands like Mamy Poko and Libero. To date, FirstCry has reached out to millions of parents across India by this initiative.
FirstCry - Startup Challenges
- The baby care segment in India is huge and promising. But the challenge lies in the fact that the market is really unorganized.
- Second, like any other business, staying relevant to consumer minds is imperative. Hence the team has to work on their toes to come with the new innovative and exciting strategies for the consumers.
FirstCry - Funding and Investors
FirstCry has raised a total of $429M in funding over 8 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Feb 7, 2020 from a Series E round.
Here is a list of all the funding rounds of FirstCry:
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investor |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 2011 | Series A | $4 million | SAIF Partners |
| February 2012 | Series B | $14 million | Chiratae Ventures, IDG Ventures India |
| January 2014 | Series C | $15 million | Vertex Ventures |
| February 2015 | Series D | $26 million | Valiant Capital Partners |
| April 2015 | Series D | $10 million | Valiant Capital Partners, NEA |
| February 2016 | Series D | $26 million | Valiant Capital Partners |
| October 2016 | Venture Round | $34 million | Vertex Ventures, Mahindra Group |
| January 2019 | Series E | $150 million | SoftBank Vision Fund |
| February 2020 | Series E | $150 million | SoftBank Vision Fund |
StartupTalky
FirstCry - Valuation
As per a report in Entrackr, Firstcry’s valuation is at $1.2 Bn which means the company is the latest to enter India’s unicorn club. It must be noted that the estimated value is based on projections made by Firstcry and there is no new valuation report corroborating the unicorn claims. However, the company was valued at roughly $850 Million in January 2019.
FirstCry - Acquisitions
FirstCry has acquired 2 organizations. Their most recent acquisition was Oi Playschool on Nov 28, 2019. FirstCryOi Playschool is a chain of premium playschools focused on safety, security and hygiene.
In 2016, BrainBees solution owned FirstCry acquired Mumbai-based BabyOye for $54 million. BabyOye is an e-commerce portal dealing in pregnancy, infant care, and mother care products and services in India.
| Acquired | Date | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Babyoye | October 2016 | $54 million |
| Oi Playschool | November 2019 | - |
StartupTalky
FirstCry - Growth
Pune based baby and mother-care product retailer FirstCry claims to be Asia's largest online store for baby and kids' products. They has more than 2,00,000 unique products and 6,000+ brands. The growth rate of the company has been exponential. It has around 400+ offline stores across India.
FirstCry parenting also has India's largest community of parents. They have around 13 Million unique parents engagement every month and the overall engagement of platform is 92 million per month. Also, FirstCry app has above 10 million downloads on google play store and App store.
Mr. Amitabh Bachchan is the brand ambassador of FirstCry.
In FY 2019, Firstcry reported a revenue of INR 535 Cr. In the regulatory filings, the company has said that it is expecting a revenue of INR 2033 Cr in FY20.
FirstCry - Competitors
The company has a huge market presence. The consumers kind of relates baby care products to FirstCry now. Therefore it does not have direct competition but online portals like Myntra, Amazon can pose some level of competition to the company on the online base. Offline stores might face competition with local vendors and shopkeepers.
FirstCry - FAQs
Who is the Brand Ambassador of FirstCry?
Amitabh Bachchan
Who are the Top Competitors of FirstCry?
Kraftly, Snapdeal, BeiBei etc., Myntra, Amazon can pose some level of competition
Who is the Owner of FirstCry?
FirstCry was co-founded by Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha.
Is FirstCry an Indian company?
FirstCry is an Indian online store for baby product retailing launched in the year 2010.
Author: Rishabh Rathi
Source : https://startuptalky.com/firstcry-success-story/
Date : 2020-08-29T09:41:00.000Z