mCaffeine, personal care startup, based out of Bombay has raised $2 million (₹13.8 crore) in Series A funding led by RP-SG Ventures. Other key investors who participated in this round include Apurva Salarpuria, LV Angel Fund, KRS Jamwal, and Telama Investments.
mCaffeine, the skin and hair care brand will use the funds to grow its online and offline presence. Also, for research and product development to expand its product portfolio to include 30 more products in the next 12 months.
The brand was started in 2016 by Vikas Lachhwani and Tarun Sharmam with a view to become India’s first caffeinated personal care brand and at present, it has close to 10 products in its portfolio. It claims to have served more than half a million customers.
The startup distributes its products through its own e-commerce portal as well as sells through all major shopping portals, including Amazon, Nykaa, and Flipkart.
“With this funding, mCaffeine plans to penetrate the market aggressively by giving more emphasis to a customer-driven approach, especially for the young millennials of India, with mass premium offerings. Currently, our products are available at 18,000 pin codes across India. We will increase our online and offline presence substantially,” Tarun Sharma, co-founder and CEO of mCaffeine stated.
Presently, the company is targeting to reach a million customers and ₹100 crore in annual revenue run rate by 2020.
“Natural and organic personal care is among the faster growing category in personal care with a strong demand and large addressable market. However, it is increasingly getting cluttered with little or no real differentiation. We believe the caffeine-based sharp positioning of mCaffeine sets them apart, which is also reflected in their growth profile,” Abhishek Goenka, head of RPSG Ventures said.
RP-SG Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund sponsored by the diversified RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. It is a $50 million venture capital fund registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
The funding company is focused on investing in early-stage consumer businesses across their Series A and B rounds, with ticket sizes ranging from $500,000-3 million. The fund plans to primarily back companies in the FMCG, lifestyle products and consumer technology sectors.
Besides, according to Assocham, one of the apex trade associations of India, the personal care market in India is set to reach $20 billion by 2025 against $6.5 billion at present.