GlobalBees joins the unicorn club as startups and investors rush into Thrasio style e-commerce

GlobalBees, just a 9-month old startup is the latest entrant to the billion dollar or unicorn club. After the largest ever Series A funding in July, GlobalBees has raised close to $111.5 Mn in a mix of equity and debt in a Series B round of investment led by FirstCry in participation with SoftBank, Premji Invest, Chiratae Ventures, and Trifecta Capital among others. Investors are betting big on the startups looking to replicate the success of Thrasio in India.

Thrasio is a US-based e-commerce player that acquires small sellers/brands listed on the Amazon marketplace. After the acquisition of Amazon seller’s businesses, Thrasio scales them up. Thrasio is valued at nearly $8 billion currently.

GlobalBees was founded by FirstCry founder Supam Maheshwari and Nitin Agarwal, a former executive of Edelweiss Financial Services, with a corpus of $75 million. It aims to invest in 30-35 brands ranging from online-only products to fast-moving consumer goods. GlobalBees is planning to invest in more than 20 brands by the end of this financial year.

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GlobalBees Brands added three more startups to its portfolio list in November. It picked up a majority stake in a dietary supplement’s maker Healthyhey, hair care products brand Rey Naturals, and eyewear brand Intellilens for undisclosed amounts. These acquisitions took the number of brands that GlobalBees has acquired in just 4-5 months to eight.