Pune-based online baby care products retailer FirstCry is reportedly in talks with Japan’s Softbank and China’s Alibaba, to raise around $200 million, according to an Economic Times report.
If the deal goes through, it is expected to more than double FirstCry’s valuation of $350 million to $800-900 million.
According to the sources cited in the report, FirstCry is being advised by the investment bank Morgan Stanley, on the deal with Softbank.
There are also reports of FirstCry being in discussion with Alibaba and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings, to participate in the round.
There has been no confirmation from any of the parties speculated to be involved in the deal.
Online shopping platform for baby care products FirstCry was founded by Amitava Saha and Supam Maheshwari in 2010. It provides a platform offering a baby and kids products across categories like footwear, feeding, skin, and toys.
Over the years FirstCry has grown 125 cities with more than 300 stores, offering more than 2 lakh baby products across 2,000 brands like FunSkool, Johnson & Johnson, Pampers, and Medela.
In October 2016, FirstCry last raised $34 million in a series D funding round led by Vertex Ventures.
FirstCry has raised more than $100 million across all its funding rounds. The online retailer counts investors like Mahindra, SAIF Partners, Infosys‘ Kris Gopalakrishnan, Temasek Holdings, Chiratae Ventures, and Valiant Capital Partners, among its backers.
Other players competing with FirstCry in the baby care products domain include BabysWorld, MamaEarth, and BabyChakra, among others.
The baby and mother care market in India is picking up and is creating huge opportunities for growth, which was earlier considered to be a niche.
It is to be noted that the Indian startup ecosystem has been attracting some major high-value investments, propelling startups to new highs.
Earlier this year, Walmart‘s acquisition of Flipkart made history in the Indian startup ecosystem, with a deal that was valued at $16 billion.
In September 2018, OYO raised $1 billion from Softbank, valuing the hotel chain at $5 billion.
So far in 2018, investors have poured in more than ₹50,000 crore in the Indian startup ecosystem.