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FirstCry buys BabyOye, raises $34 million in funding

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CIOL FirstCry buys BabyOye, raises $34 million in funding

Online babycare products seller FirstCry (BrainBees Solutions Pvt. Ltd) has acquired the franchise division of Mahindra Retail Pvt. Ltd, which owns online babycare business BabyOye, in a cash and stock deal worth $54 million.

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The double-pronged move will not only significantly shore up FirstCry’s offline presence but would also strengthen its position as a market leader in the baby care segment.

According to the filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange, the deal will comprise an equity component worth Rs. 354.6 crore and Rs. 7.5 crore in cash.

Notably, Mahindra Retail has a strong offline mark with more than 120 stores operating under the ‘BabyOye by Mahindra’ brand.

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Meanwhile, FirstCry has also raised $34 million in a fresh funding round from the Mahindra Group, Zurich-headquartered private equity fund Adveq, Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and existing investors IDG Ventures India, New Enterprise Associates, SAIF Partners, Temasek Holdings, Valiant Capital Partners, and Vertex Ventures.

“I believe that the future belongs to click and brick businesses and that consolidation is the way to thrive and establish industry leadership. We, at the Mahindra Group, are therefore delighted to join hands with an innovative brand like FirstCry and with its CEO Supam Maheshwari. I am optimistic that this consolidation of the strengths that both groups bring to the partnership will result in a winning proposition. We are hugely excited by the possibilities,” said, Anand Mahindra, chairman and managing director of the Mahindra Group.

FirstCry was founded by Supam Maheshwari in 2010 and follows an omnichannel strategy managing about 180 offline stores, while the Mahindra Group operates about 120 stores under the BabyOye brand. Post the merger, the combined entity will be called FirstCry.com-A FirstCry Mahindra Venture, and will have its footprint across 300 physical stores in 125 cities.

Supam Maheshwari, the founder of FirstCry, said, “We are delighted to partner with a prestigious business house like Mahindra, both as a retail brand and as an investor. FirstCry.com has been at the heart of organizing the huge baby and kids market in India. FirstCry.com will help scale up the reach of this service and experience faster. Our partnership with the Mahindra Group will bring in synergies that will help us scale and achieve our profitability goal much faster. Together, we will continue to scout for more opportunities for inorganic growth.”

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