Lifestyle startup G.O.A.T Brand Labs raised around $36 million (Rs 267.8 crore) in series A funding round. This round was led by Tiger Global and saw participation by Flipkart's early-stage venture fund Flipkart Ventures, Mayfield, Nordstar and Better Capital. Angel investors like Conde Nast India Managing Director Alex Kuruvilla, BharatPe's Suhail Sameer, DailyHunt's Virender Gupta, Udaan's Sujit Kuamr, Manipal Group's Ranjan Pai and Texport's Neeraj Goenka were also a part of this round.
The startup aims to speed up its growth by partnering with digitally native brands by investing in them and providing them with a plug-in-and-play platform. GBL is in talks with 10 brands for acquisition and will make an announcement regarding the same shortly, according to G.O.A.T statement. GBL is eyeing brands in the fashion, beauty, personal care, and home and kitchen space in the first phase.
"G.O.A.T stands for greatest of all time. Through this venture, we are bringing together passionate entrepreneurs, their D2C brands, marquee investors, industry experts and a dynamic team, who believe in the philosophy of partnering and nurturing. We want these brands to have access to the best resources so that they scale rapidly to become G.O.A.Ts," GBL co-founder Rishi Vasudev said.
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Vasudev added the company aims at fuelling the growth of direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands across channels like marketplaces, e-commerce platforms, offline retail and global markets as well by providing them a tech-enabled platform for end-to-end integration with digital marketing expertise. GBL's integrated platform will help these brands gain from economies of scale and maintain high efficiency.
Tiger Global Partner Scott Shleifer believes that GBL is tapping on the potential of the D2C market in India while helping the brands grow in scale with this investment. "The potential of the D2C market in India will only continue to grow and GBL is well-positioned to effectively tap this while helping brands scale. We are excited to partner with Rishi, Rameswar, and the team, as they build their tech-enabled platform and make the best resources available to native brands," Shleifer said.
Edited by Mehak Agarwal
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