Anand Mahindra Asserts How FirstCry Investment Is Mahindra's Value Creation Experiment

Anand Mahindra, Chairperson of Mahindra & Mahindra, at the FirstCry listing ceremony, explained why M&M invested in FirstCry. He described it as an experiment to understand how large business groups incubate and build new businesses. In 2010, as FirstCry was being established, Mahindra Partners was created to foster entrepreneurship within a big organization. Mahindra Partners was tasked with investing in and incubating companies, particularly in new-age fields, while competing with startups. Led by Zhooben Bhiwandiwala and Parag Shah, the initiative aimed to adopt a startup mentality focused on value creation. They successfully spun off Mahindra Logistics from Mahindra, grew it significantly, and created Mahindra Susten in the renewable energy sector. Mahindra Accelo was also transformed from a trading business to a manufacturing powerhouse. They invested in Mom & Me, a baby product business, which later consolidated with Baby Oye to compete with FirstCry. Recognizing the brilliance and efficiency of Supam Mahindra, Zhooben suggested merging with FirstCry to create greater value rather than competing. This merger made Mahindra the largest shareholder in FirstCry, which subsequently thrived and attracted significant investment from SoftBank.