Thrasio-style venture G.O.A.T Brand Labs has completed its Series A funding of around $36 million which includes equity and debt. This round was led by Tiger Global, with participation from Flipkart Ventures (the early stage venture fund of Flipkart), Mayfield, Nordstar and Better Capital. Some of the prominent angel investors who are also part of this round are Virender Gupta of DailyHunt, Sujit Kumar of Udaan, Dr Ranjan Pai of Manipal Group, Suhail Sameer of BharatPe, Neeraj Goenka of Texport, and Alex Kuruvilla, MD, Conde Nast India.
The founders of G.O.A.T, Rishi Vasudev and Rameswar Misra, bring with them decades of expertise in this space. Rishi has vast experience of building and scaling fashion and lifestyle brands (both online and offline) in his previous roles as Flipkart’s Group Head – Fashion (Flipkart and Myntra) and as CEO of iconic brands and retailers – Calvin Klein India, Lifestyle Departmental Store & Home Centre. Rameswar, who was co-founder of menswear brand Turms and previously an SVP at VOONIK, has first-hand experience in creating, launching and scaling brands in the D2C space.
“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,” Rishi said.
He added that G.O.A.T will fuel exponential growth of D2C brands across all channels – marketplaces, brand’s e-commerce platforms, offline retail, and global markets too, by providing them a tech-enabled platform for end-to-end integration replete with deep digital marketing expertise.
Speaking about the Flipkart Ventures investment in G.O.A.T., Ravi Iyer, Senior Vice President and Head, Corporate Development, Flipkart, said, “At Flipkart, we’re consistently focused on identifying opportunities and building new partnerships that benefit the ecosystem at large. Our investment in G.O.A.T. Brand Labs is aligned to this intent, as we aim to work with early stage startups that have the potential to address emerging business and consumer requirements leveraging the power of technology. The leadership team at G.O.A.T. has deep experience in this segment and we look forward to the transformation they will make in the D2C segment.”
G.O.A.T’s model is similar to US-based Thrasio, a digital consumer goods company that acquires private label Amazon FBA businesses and direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands. Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) is a storage and shipping service that Amazon offers to help business owners sell their products.
G.O.A.T is in advanced discussions with at least 10 brands for acquisition and would be announcing the same shortly. They are looking at brands in fashion, beauty, personal care, and home & kitchen in the first phase.