GlobalBees Acquires its Way to the Club

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According to a recent report, the Indian E-commerce market is expected to grow to $188 billion by 2025 from $46.2 billion in 2020. The market is expected to further grow to $350 billion by 2030 from $74.8 billion in 2022 driven by an increase in internet and smartphone penetration. These growth rates are triggering the creation of several e-commerce unicorns in the country. One recent entry is GlobalBees.

GlobalBees’s Offerings

Founded in 2021 by Deepak Khetan and Nitin Agarwal, Delhi-based GlobalBees nurtures next-generation brands and creates meaningful products to address unique consumer needs. It uses its innovation-led strategy and consumer-first approach to build and scale the brands of the future. With consumers’ needs constantly evolving, GlobalBees pursues out-of-the-box ideas to cater to these evolving needs and helps enhance all aspects of customer experience for these brands.

The company essentially rolls up consumer e-commerce brands. It identifies and acquires innovative consumer internet brands that are seeing traction in areas including grooming, personal care, home care and kitchen, food and nutrition, sports and leisure. It helps these businesses by building their ecommerce front by selling to marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, and other channels in India and beyond. Nearly a dozen businesses selling in India and abroad have either collaborated or have been purchased by GlobalBees.

The long-term plan for GlobalBees is to invest in 30-35 companies in various direct to consumer categories, fast-moving consumer goods categories, and more. It looks for emerging companies in the revenue range of $1-$20 million as part of its growth strategy. GlobalBees believes that there is an opportunity to create products that are “digital native”. It focuses on midrange to higher end product categories that are not so easily available online.

Some of the brands acquired by GlobalBees include names like Yellow Chimes, which offers jewelry for men and women in trending designs, Mush that offers bamboo textile products, andMe which is a women’s healthcare and wellness brand, Prolixr which is a cruelty free skincare brand, and many more. It is now present in more than 60+ cities across the country.

GlobalBees is not the only player trying to make this model work. In the US, this model is credited to Thrasio that has also built an empire out of buying products for e-commerce sales. In India, other companies trying to follow the same route include brands like Powerhouse91, Mensa Brands, 10club, and UpScale.

GlobalBees’s Financials

GlobalBees does not provide details of its revenues or profitability. It plans to reach $1 billion in revenues by 2026, and turn profitable by then.

GlobalBees has raised $290.7 million in four rounds of funding led by PremjiInvest, FirstCry, Trifecta Capital Advisors, Steadview Capital, SoftBank Vision Fund, Lightspeed India Partners, Chiratae Ventures, and Chrys Capital. Its most recent round was held in December 2021 where it raised $110 million at a valuation of $1.1 billion.

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