Globalbees raises $150 million, plans to partner with brands to fuel growth

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Jul 21, 2021

Globalbees has raised $150 million (Rs 1,117 crore) in a mix of equity and debt in its Series A funding round that was led by FirstCry, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Softbank, among others.
 

As part of the deal, Vikas Agnihotri of SoftBank, Harsha Kumar of Lightspeed, Atul Gupta of Premji Invest, Sudhir Sethi of Chiratae Ventures, and Kshitij Sheth of Chrys Capital will all be a part of the Globalbees board.
 
The start-up plans to utilise the funds to partner with brands across categories such as beauty, personal care, home, sports, lifestyle among many others.

Commenting on the investment, Nitin Agarwal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Globalbees in a statement said: “Apart from capital, Globalbees brings in strategic capabilities across marketing and growth, technology, distribution, sourcing, branding, warehousing, logistics, R&D, product and operations—all things essential to rapidly scale brands in the digital space.”
 
Vikas Agnihotri, operating partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers added: "India is at the cusp of a direct-to-consumer (D2C) revolution with an estimated market size of $200 billion in the next five years. Indian brands have shown great promise in recent years, and we believe that Globalbees is building great assets to accelerate the growth of digitally native brands in the country.”
 
Globalbees is modelled on the Boston-based e-commerce start-up Thrasio which acquires small merchants and brands on leading e-commerce platforms and helps grow their business.