Sexual wellness startup Kaamastra acquires adult online store ItsPleaZure
Kaamastra, the sexual wellness brand, today announced that it has acquired premium adult online store ItsPleaZure. While the details of the acquisition were undisclosed, the site will continue to run separately.
Founded in 2013 by Rahber Nazir, who was a Wipro employee, and Maqsood Nazir, who was an entrepreneur out of Pune, for the past 30 years, Kaamastra is an online store for adult products.
“The plan, even then, was to grow it into the largest sexual wellness brand in the country,” says Rahber. Starting with two employees, the team today has 19 employees now and has close to 50,000 pieces of product inventory. The platform had over 150 listings in 2013, and is now touching 5,000 products.
ItsPleaZure, founded by Divya Chauhan, addresses the needs of female consumers, an audience the team at Kaamastra felt it could better cater to.
“I’ve known the founders of ItsPleaZure since 2016 when they launched and was very excited to approach them to close the deal. ItsPleaZure has more than 20,000 monthly visitors and is a leading brand in the category. They currently sell over 2,000 different products,” explains Rahber.
As far as sexual wellness is concerned today, Rahber believes that the market has expanded and there is a lot more customer knowledge thanks to the different awareness activities being done. “People are more open than ever and have grown more sophisticated in terms of their product requirements and wants. This makes our job easier as we can recommend the right products,” he adds.
The main challenge, however, is that people don't tell their friends about the brands and the products, perhaps because of the stigma attached to being open about sexual wellness. But the market and industry are evolving quickly on that front as well.
Rahber adds that the deliveries are done in two to four days on average and they offer a guarantee of discreet packaging. In 2015-16, Kaamastra claims to have seen a growth of 60 percent, followed by a 150-percent growth, and at 100 percent last year. Next year, the team is hoping to touch 100-percent sales growth. The team claims to have an increase in basket size by 70 percent.
Over the past couple of years, the world of sexuality, sexual awareness and sexual health has started becoming more mature. There are several startups like Thatspersonal, ImBesharam, Lovetreats, Kinkpin in the market today.
Globally, sexual wellness is a highly lucrative market; the revenues in the US are estimated to grow to $52 billion by 2020. The sexual wellness market in India is growing steadily and is estimated to be worth Rs 1,000 crore in the years to come.
“Kaamastra will be growing consistently and quickly for the foreseeable future. We have plans for new avenues of distribution and new product lines along with expanding our social media presence and creating and curating many social activities for education and awareness,” says Rahber.