Women Social Network Healofy Raises Funds from Japan's M&S Partners

Hiro Mashita-led Japanese investment firm M&S Partners has invested in Healofy, India’s largest and fastest-growing Women Social Network. Healofy connects millions of women across different stages of life - from getting married, to becoming a mother, and beyond. Having started as a pregnancy and parenting community in 2016, Healofy seeks to empower women by enabling them to consume relatable information, create content, and showcase their skills sets. This peer-to-peer platform also enables women to connect and influence other like-minded women based on similar language, location, life-stage, as well as interests such as fashion, food, fitness, lifestyle, learning different skill sets, and earning from home.

Prior to this, the Bangalore-based startup has raised $9.5 million from Omidyar Network India, BabyTree Group (01761.HK, China’s Largest Parenting Platform, a Public company), BAce Capital - a fund backed by Alibaba’s Ant Financial Services Group, and angel investors. With over 2 million app downloads, the app has successfully created a strong community of over 500,000 Daily Active Users (DAUs) and 1 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) on their Android app, exhibiting industry-leading engagement and retention. The platform also sees 1.5 million+ monthly web visits.

According to the "Toward Gender Equity Online: Research with the Next Billion Users" report by Google India, “women are reluctant to network online on social platforms due to the fear of harassment and lack of a safe community”. Additionally, women often struggle to find relevant content and supportive communities online. Healofy’s mission is to create a vernacular social network exclusively for Indian women to feel informed, safe and empowered, allowing them to consume, connect, and transact in a trusted space.

Healofy is addressing this by bringing Indian women together on a platform where their opinions are heard and their personalities are valued. Catering to Indian women across Tier 2, 3 & 4 cities through content in their native language, Healofy offers content on various topics of women’s interests in 9 languages - English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

What makes Healofy’s communities unique is that they facilitate smoother peer-to-peer interaction in users’ mother tongues, by using innovations which include allowing a user to type vernacular words using English characters, which the app converts on the fly into the regional script.

Further on, Healofy envisions to help women attain financial independence by helping them earn from home via network e-commerce. By allowing women to form meaningful connections and relationships with other women in the Healofy community, the aim is to replicate the offline experience of networking and ‘shopping together’ in the online world.

“The societal impact Healofy is having is immense and has resonated strongly with their users. Led by the passionate founders, Gaurav and Shubham, we believe that this impressive team is capable of disrupting the online behavior of the next 100 Million Indian women, and we are excited to be part of this journey with them.” said Hiro Mashita, Director, M&S Partners.

“It has been an incredible journey for us over the last three years, impacting the lives of millions of women. At Healofy, we are committed to providing a safe and empowering online environment for women in the country. We are excited to welcome M&S Partners to be part of the journey.” said Gaurav Aggarwal, CEO and Co-Founder of Healofy.

About Healofy

Healofy is India’s largest social network exclusively for women, addressing the growing need for credible, relatable content and a safe, empowering community for Indian women on the Internet. Healofy was founded in September 2016 by Forbes 30 Under 30 awardees Gaurav Aggarwal and Shubham Maheshwari, alumni of IIT Guwahati and NIT Warangal respectively. Initially focused on women’s critical-health content like conception, pregnancy and post-pregnancy care, the app has since become the leading social network for women in India which aims to create an online community where Indian women can feel informed, safe and empowered, allowing them to connect consume, connect and transact in a trusted space.

Jewellery Marketplace Joolz Raises Rs 3.3 Cr in Pre Series A Round

Mumbai-based jewellery-focused community marketplace Joolz that was founded in June last year by Belgian-born Israeli Lorie and Eli Atlas, has raised Rs 3.3 crore (about $500,000) in a pre-Series-A round led by two prominent early-stage venture capital firms, Silicon Valley-based Powerhouse Ventures and Japan's M&S Partners.

The one-year-old company plans to use the proceeds primarily to boost operations, products, marketing and further building up its team, founder Arnaud Lorie told ET. Other investors who participated in the round include Ah! Ventures; Deepak Kasthwal, the former finance head of ride-hailing app Ola; PKX Thomas, the former chief technology officer of online travel agency Cleartrip; and Mahesh Ahuja, director at Brittman.

The startup which has brought on board about 35 jewellers, a mix of online and offline retailers, has so far largely focused on small-ticket jewellery items ranging from Rs 10,000-25,000. It was also a part of the Rajesh Sawhney-led GSF Accelerator.

"The opportunities for growth are massive here. The offline or traditional Indian jewellery market has been estimated at $40 billion while the online jewellery market, which is still nascent, is currently valued at about $200 million by a number of industry reports," Lorie said.

According to an estimate by jewellery portal Jewelmart, the online jewellery market in India is expected to grow to $3.6 billion over the next three years.

The other players in this space who raised funding recently are Bluestone, raised a Rs 200 crore Series D round last month while Tata Group firm Titan picked up a 62% stake in Caratlane for Rs 357.24 crore.

In January, Bengaluru-based online jewellery designer and retailer Melorra closed its first round of funding at $5 million (about Rs 33.4 crore) from venture capital firm Lightbox, in one of the largest amounts raised by an Indian venture in seed funding at the time.

Jewellery Marketplace Joolz Raises Rs 3.3 Cr in Pre Series A Round

Mumbai-based jewellery-focused community marketplace Joolz that was founded in June last year by Belgian-born Israeli Lorie and Eli Atlas, has raised Rs 3.3 crore (about $500,000) in a pre-Series-A round led by two prominent early-stage venture capital firms, Silicon Valley-based Powerhouse Ventures and Japan's M&S Partners.

The one-year-old company plans to use the proceeds primarily to boost operations, products, marketing and further building up its team, founder Arnaud Lorie told ET. Other investors who participated in the round include Ah! Ventures; Deepak Kasthwal, the former finance head of ride-hailing app Ola; PKX Thomas, the former chief technology officer of online travel agency Cleartrip; and Mahesh Ahuja, director at Brittman.

The startup which has brought on board about 35 jewellers, a mix of online and offline retailers, has so far largely focused on small-ticket jewellery items ranging from Rs 10,000-25,000. It was also a part of the Rajesh Sawhney-led GSF Accelerator.

"The opportunities for growth are massive here. The offline or traditional Indian jewellery market has been estimated at $40 billion while the online jewellery market, which is still nascent, is currently valued at about $200 million by a number of industry reports," Lorie said.

According to an estimate by jewellery portal Jewelmart, the online jewellery market in India is expected to grow to $3.6 billion over the next three years.

The other players in this space who raised funding recently are Bluestone, raised a Rs 200 crore Series D round last month while Tata Group firm Titan picked up a 62% stake in Caratlane for Rs 357.24 crore.

In January, Bengaluru-based online jewellery designer and retailer Melorra closed its first round of funding at $5 million (about Rs 33.4 crore) from venture capital firm Lightbox, in one of the largest amounts raised by an Indian venture in seed funding at the time.