[Funding alert] Bombay Shaving Company raises Rs 50 Cr from GII in follow-on Series C round

New Delhi-based personal care and hair removal brand Bombay Shaving Company has raised Rs 50 crore from Gulf Islamic Investments (GII), as a follow on to its Rs 160 crore Series C funding round led by Malabar. This takes the round size to Rs 210 crore. 

The round comes 11 months after the company raised Rs 45 crore from Reckitt, a global FMCG giant in the health, hygiene, and nutrition space. The company is capitalised with two global, strategic giants – Colgate Palmolive and Reckitt on their cap table. 

In an official statement, Bombay Shaving Company (BSC) said it plans to scale operations to Rs 500 crore top line with an omnichannel presence in the next two years, and will deploy the funds towards expanding its portfolio of personal care and hair removal products. GII will also be strategically positioned to provide access to GCC markets in addition to already existing domestic market expertise the company has attained.

“We are singularly focused on building a brand that owns hair removal and personal care. As we scale from Rs 150 crore to Rs 500 crore and Rs 1,000 crore, we needed an investor group that could guide us on building an IPO-able company,” said Shantanu Deshpande, Founder CEO of BSC.

“Interactions with GII were always focused on the right things – customer, product experience and team quality,” he added. 

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Launched in 2016 by ex McKinsey & Co consultant Shantanu Deshpande, BSC started as a premium, D2C, experiential shaving regimen brand and has since expanded into diverse hair removal categories. In 2020, BSC forayed into women’s hair removal with their brand ‘Bombay Shaving Company–Women’ which now accounts for nearly 25 percent of the total business. 

BSC has a portfolio of over 100 SKUs – comprising hair removal products for both men and women. The list includes: shaving regimens, trimmers, beard products, razors for women, wax strips, hair removal creams, and other personal care products and accessories. BSC claims to have served over three million customers across channels in the six years of its existence.

This series C is the 6th round of financing for the company that counts Reckitt, Colgate Palmolive, Sixth Sense Venture Partners, and industry powerlifters (including former vice-chairman of TCS S Ramadorai and 16 senior partners from McKinsey & Company) as investors. 

“We love the company’s focus on hair removal and personal care as a category. It is a deep market, there is first mover advantage and the company has demonstrated strengths in building innovative products. We are thrilled to partner with Shantanu and team,” added Pankaj Gupta and Mohammed Alhassan, Co-founders and Co-CEOs, Gulf Islamic Investments (GII).

The company is clocking Rs 150 crore in net revenue, growing 35 percent Q-O-Q and employs 200 people.