Transaction:
- Smytten, online platform for consumer product discovery and trials, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Fireside Ventures.
- Participation from Sharrp Ventures (Mariwala family office), Survam Partners (Suman Kant Munjal family office), and Waao Partners (Pratul Shroff family office) was also seen in this round along with existing investor Roots Ventures.
Smytten:
- It was founded in 2015 by ex-Googler Swagat Sarangi and ex-Unilever executive Siddhartha Nangia as a luxury product sampling service. Smytten digitizes the pre-purchase product trial experience for consumers. It offers free trials and curated shopping across categories like beauty, skincare, male grooming, food & beverages, smart technology, premium services and more.
- It targets consumers between 20 to 35 years who have disposable incomes and are willing to experiment with products they use.
- It enables consumers to try products online before they decide to buy and has around more than 5 million users. It is headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana.
- Smytten holds 700 D2C brands on its platform.
About Investor:
- Founded in 2017, Fireside Ventures is an investment firm specializing in early stage and seed investments with its main focus on consumer brands. The fund aims to invest in consumer brands across sectors such as food and beverages, personal care, kids & education, lifestyle and home products etc.
Rationale:
- Siddhartha Nangia, ISB Alumni, founder of Smytten, told Vora Corporate Finance that a significant amount of funding will go into technology development which will help D2C brands with rich consumer data for new product development, acquiring customers, consumer marketing and achieving scale.
- The company will also invest in developing infrastructure to ensure next day product delivery which enhances consumer experience. It will also be dabbling in online to offline touch points such as experience kiosks/zones at airports/malls.
- He added that the pre-purchase buying experience will be the biggest enabler and will fuel the burgeoning Indian D2C market which is projected to touch $100 billion in next four to five years.
- He believes this sampling-led tried-and-tested method of customer engagement will change the way D2C brands and consumers interact, making it more immersive and experience based.
- Fireside ventures commented that with D2C becoming mainstream, brand marketers need fresh, sharper solutions that can help in creating the right brand experience for consumers who are on the lookout for superior quality products.
- Root Ventures added that Smytten’s revenue has grown 8x since they invested and Smytten’s integrated approach had potential to lead the sampling and advertising market by 2025.
Acknowledgements:
RBI Bulletin (www.bulletin.rbi.org.in), SEBI (www.sebi.gov.in), NSE (www.nseindia.com), BSE (www.bseindia.com)
Disclaimer:
This material has been prepared by the personnel in Vora Corporate Finance which is Investment Banking arm of Vora Management Consultancy Private Limited and looks after Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Private Equity (PE), Fund Raising, Debt syndication and Valuations and is based out of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Any views or opinions expressed herein are solely that of individual authors and may differ from view of Vora Management Consultancy Private Limited. This material is proprietary to Vora Management Consultancy Private Limited and is for your personal use only. Any distribution, copy, reprints or forward to others is strictly prohibited.
This material captures the information based on information available in the public domain, public announcements and sources believed to be reliable. Analysis contained herein is based on publicly available information and appropriate assumptions. This material is intended merely to highlight market developments and is not intended to be comprehensive and does not constitute strategic, investment, legal or tax advice. In no event Vora Management Consultancy Private Limited be liable for any use by any party or for any decision made or action taken by any party in reliance upon, or for any inaccuracies or errors in, or omissions from, the information contained herein and such information may not be relied upon by you for evaluating any transaction.
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