Mahesh Bhupati's Beauty & Wellness Startup Scentials Raises ₹25 Cr from Unilever Ventures

Mumbai-based Scentials Beautycare & Wellness Pvt, founded by tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi and Jinesh Mehta, has raised Rs 25 crore in a Series A round from Unilever Ventures, the venture capital and private equity arm of consumer goods giants Unilever.

Scentials has recently launched Virat Kohli’s one8 brand in the fragrance category in January this year and followed it with launching a line of skin care products - Arias - with actor Lara Dutta.

The company is centered on designing, developing, manufacturing and distributing products through multiple brands across fragrances, skin-care, makeup and men's grooming, which is shaped by the vision and personalities of various Indian celebrities.

Scentials has global licensing and endorsement agreements with some of the most-successful celebrities in the field of sports and entertainment to design, develop, manufacture, market, and distribute products through multiple brands across fragrances, skin-care, makeup and men’s grooming.

“Since our inception, we have focused on making high-quality beauty products available at affordable prices to the consumer, and have already received great traction. This has been made possible through our strategic partnerships with top celebrities – both actors and sports persons – whose personalities and presence resonate with consumers not only in India but also globally,” Jinesh Mehta, chairman, scentials said.

Pawan Chaturvedi, Investment Director at Unilever Ventures said, "Scentials is building a unique beauty brands studio platform that combines fast paced innovations across beauty categories with endorsements from top tier Indian celebrities in sports, films & entertainment. The celebrity partnerships provide massive traditional and social media reach driving brand salience."
Unilever Ventures

Unilever Ventures India made its first investment during late 2017 in Peel-Works, a consumer-based big data analytics company. Peel-Works helps retailers drive higher shopper loyalty, optimise their store assortments and inventory levels. It had also invested $10 million in fellow venture capital firm Chiratae Ventures, formerly IDG Ventures. It has also invested in Plum Skincare and grocery delivery startup Milkbasket.

Milkbasket Raises fresh $10.5 Mn from Unilever Ventures, Mayfield India, others

Within a few weeks after raising Rs 20 crore in venture debt funding led by Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal’s BAC Acquisitions, grocery delivery startup Milkbasket has raised an additional US$10.5 million (~ ₹ 69.20 crore) in a fresh round of funding led by Unilever Ventures, with participation from Mayfield India, Kalaari Capital, and Blume Ventures and few Indian family offices, reported Times of India,

"While the industry is witnessing a number of players adopting our model, this funding - our largest fund infusion till date - is a testament to our robust execution, the team and continued trust of our investors in the growth of Milkbasket," Milkbasket Co-founder and CEO Anant Goel said in a statement.

According to the startup, more than 70% of its revenue comes from non-milk products, from the wide assortment of over 8,500 stock keeping units.

In last 6-7 months, Gurgaon headquartered Milkbasket has launched its services in four cities across India with Bengaluru being the latest.

"We are steadily and surely moving towards our goal of achieving USD 1 billion annual recurring revenue in 2021. Together with investing in talent and geographic expansion, Milkbasket continues to invest in customer centric innovation, and this funding will help us focus on all the three areas to build a national market leader in online grocery," Goel added.

To date, Milkbasket has raised a total of about $32.7 million in funding over eight rounds from Mayfield Advisors, Beenext, Kalaari Capital, Unilever Ventures, Lenovo Capital (LCIH), Blume Ventures and few family offices.

Big Data Analysis Firm Peel-Works Raises $5 Mn from Equanimity Ventures, HDFC Bank and Others

Mumbai-based Peel-Works, a big-data and analytics startup focussed on retailing, has raised $5 million in Series B in a round led by Equanimity Ventures. The funding round also saw participation from HDFC Bank, Bruno Raschle and existing investors Unilever Ventures, Chiratae Ventures and Inventus Capital India, reports LiveMint.

The company has two proprietary software products -- Taikee, a B2B e-commerce platform and Athena, a 'real'​ market measurement standard for unorganised retail. The fresh capital raised will allow Peel-Works to strengthen Taikee by expand its footprint to other geographical markets. Taikee currently claims to have over 20,000 registered retailers across 16 cities, including Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Jaipur, Bangalore, Pune, Mysore, Chennai, and others.

Peel-Works was founded in 2010 by Sachin Chhabra, who is an XLRI Jamshedpur alumnus and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

“The funds will be used to expand business across 25 cities and on board 100,000 retailers over the next six to twelve months” said Sachin Chhabra, founder & CEO, Peel Works. In the grocery segment, Peel-Works is looking to hit close to a $1 billion in GMV run rate in 2019, the company said.

He added that Indian shoppers continue to rely on brick-and-mortar stores for their monthly and daily grocery needs. “Taikee helps these retailers grow faster, retain their customers and improve their profitability. The platform delivers this by helping the retailer right-size his assortment, buy it cheaper, and adopt technology that makes it convenient for shoppers to transact with him," said Chhabra.

So far, the startup has managed to raise a total of about $7 million in funding over four rounds. In July 2014, Peel-Works had raised $2 million in series-A of funding from IDG Ventures India and Inventus Capital Partner. Earlier in 2011, Indian Angel Network (IAN) had also invested a $1 million in Peel-Works.

Rakesh Singh, Group Head-Investment Banking, Private Banking, Capital Markets and Financial Institutions, HDFC Bank, said, "We believe Peel-Works, with their data-driven/tech-led approach, complements HDFC Bank's own focus on delivering value to Indian retailers with digital solutions and banking services. Neighborhood grocery stores are at the centre of India’s retail story and represent a vast market."

Social Commerce Platform Shop101 Raises Fresh ₹80 Crore from Kalaari, Unilever Ventures

Mumbai based Shop101, a social commerce platform that enables entrepreneurs to sell on WhatsApp, Facebook & Instagram with zero investment, has raised Rs 80 crore (~ US$ 11 million) in Series B funding from Kalaari Capital and Unilever Ventures.

Existing investors, Stellaris Venture Partners, Vy Capital, and Livspace cofounder Ramakant Sharma also participated in the round.

The fresh funding comes in less than five months after the startup had raised $5 million in Series A round led by Stellaris Venture Partners and Vy Capital. To date, Shop101 has raised a total of $5.2 millioon in funding over two rounds including this one.

The startup will use the fresh funds to strengthen its core leadership and product team, scale the supplier network and enhance the technology platform, Abhinav Jain, Founder & CEO, Shop101.

Notably, just last month an another "Whatsapp/Facebook" based social commerce platform called 'Meesho' had raised $50 million in a Series C funding round from Shunwei Capital, DST Partners and RPS Ventures. Backed by Sequoia Capital, Meesho has raised a total of about $65 million in fundings and out of this $61.5 million have been raised in this year alone.

Shop101 enables reselling from a wide range of supply of products along with providing a technology platform to setup online stores integrated with a pan-India fulfillment network.

Founded in 2015, by IIT Kanpur alumni Abhinav Jain and Aditya Gupta, Shop101 helps small merchants sell to customers on social media platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. It has an online store with an inbuilt order-processing system. It also has a marketplace that helps small sellers procure supplies from distributors and manufacturers at the best price, further enabling micro-entrepreneurship.

“Social media as commerce platforms have the ability to disrupt traditional e-commerce players by offering personalised shopping experiences. Given India’s diverse population, social commerce will be the next great opportunity to reach new internet consumers,” said Vani Kola, managing director of Kalaari Capital.

"The Social Selling platform is tapping the large Indian e-commerce market potential beyond Metro cities. The model and unique technology empowers individuals across the country to become entrepreneurs. We believe Shop101 is well placed to grow this market" said Pawan Chaturvedi, Investment Director, Unilever Ventures.

[Top Image - Entrackr.com]

Source - Economic Times - ETTech

IDG Ventures Collaborates With Unilever, AWS For 2017 Innovation Program

Tech-focused venture capital firm IDG Ventures India (IDGVI) has launched the 2017 Innovation Program, #IDGIP2017 to reach out to mushrooming startups across its core sectors of consumer tech, software, healthtech and fintech products space. This program shall be applicable to startups looking to raise Seed or Series A rounds between $0.5 million to $5.0 million.

Commenting on the development, Sudhir Sethi, Founder Chairman, IDG Ventures India said, “After the very successful 2016 Innovation Program, the 2017 edition expects to reach out to over 1,000 companies in the next 2 months and partner with/invest in select start-ups from Fund 3 to grow with IDG Ventures India’s unique growth platform. IDG Ventures will view early-stage Seed and Series A startups in this Program who are uniquely disruptive and are innovative leaders in the market”.

For the program, IDGVI will be collaborating with Unilever Ventures and Amazon Internet Services Private Limited (AISPL), the Indian affiliate of Seattle-headquartered Amazon Web Services, Inc.

UV has a strategic relationship with IDGVI as an investor and will evaluate companies as part of this program for potential co-investments. Also, the shortlisted companies will receive technology mentorship from the AISPL team and value-added benefits like AWS credits, premium business support and GTM connects.

Who Can Apply?

Startups, preferably less than three years old looking to raise Seed or Series A rounds between $0.5 million to $5.0 million of funding are encouraged to apply. Applications for the IDGVI Innovators Program are open from June 8 and close on June 26. The shortlisted startups will meet the IDGVI team in Bengaluru on 6 and 7July, where they will present to senior team members of IDG Ventures India and Unilever Ventures. Selected startups will then progress to the funding track while all the shortlisted companies can participate in mentoring sessions by AISPL and Unilever Ventures’ team on all aspects related to starting up.

As the most active tech-focused VC, IDGVI has run successful sector programs in 2016 that focused on consumer-tech and software. The 2016 program saw close to 1,000 applications from startups and via this program, IDGVI invested in six companies – Little Black Book, Flyrobe, Active.ai, Pipecandy, Hansel.io and Infisecure. Investment size varied from $0.5 million to $3.0million depending on the stage of each of the selected companies.

One can apply for the current programme here.