[Funding alert] G.O.A.T Brand raises $36M in Series A led by Tiger Global, Flipkart Ventures

G.O.A.T Brand Labs, the Bengaluru-based startup that accelerates the growth of D2C brands, on Monday said it raised $36 million in a Series A round through a mix of equity and debt led by Tiger Global and Flipkart Ventures.

Other investors, including Mayfield, Nordstar, and Better Capital, and prominent angel investors — Virender Gupta (DailyHunt), Sujit Kumar (Udaan), Ranjan Pai (Manipal Group), Suhail Sameer (BharatPe), Neeraj Goenka (Texport), and Alex Kuruvilla (MD, Conde Nast India), also participated in the round.

G.O.A.T Brand — which also stands for "Greatest of All Time" — is founded by former Flipkart executive Rishi Vasudev and former SVP at VOONIK, Rameswar Misra. The founding team of the startup comprises people with deep expertise in brand building, digital marketing, fashion design, M&A, and operations at scale.

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Co-founder Rishi Vasudev said, “Through this venture, we are bringing together passionate entrepreneurs, their D2C brands, marquee investors, industry experts, and a dynamic team, who believe in the philosophy of partnering and nurturing. We want these brands to have access to the best resources so that they scale rapidly to become G.O.A.T's."

According to Rishi, G.O.A.T will fuel the growth of D2C brands across all channels — marketplaces, a brand’s ecommerce platforms, offline retail, and global markets, too, by providing a tech-enabled platform for end-to-end integration replete with deep digital marketing expertise.

Speaking about the investment, Ravi Iyer, Senior Vice President and Head, Corporate Development, Flipkart, said, “At Flipkart, we are consistently focused on identifying opportunities and building new partnerships that benefit the ecosystem at large. Our investment in G.O.A.T. Brand Labs is aligned to this intent as we aim to work with early-stage startups that have the potential to address emerging business and consumer requirements leveraging the power of technology. The leadership team at G.O.A.T. have deep experience in this segment, and we look forward to the transformation they will make in the D2C segment.”

Scott Shleifer, Partner at Tiger Global, said, “The potential of the D2C market in India will only continue to grow, and G.O.A.T. Brand Labs is well-positioned to effectively tap this while helping brands scale.”