[Funding alert] Smytten raises Rs 100 Cr led by Fireside, Roots Ventures

The tech enabled product discovery and trial platform Smyttenhas raised Rs 100 crore in Pre-Series B funding led by Fireside Ventures and Roots Ventures. The funding round also saw participation from Sharrp Ventures, Waao Partners, Survam Partners, and Sattva Group Family Office. With this funding, the valuation of the company, while undisclosed, has doubled.

In a conversation with YourStory, Siddhartha Nangia, Co-founder of Smytten said, "We are looking at a significant growth and push this year. The funding we have raised will be used for five different growth aspects of the business. One is the significant growth of the technology and infrastructure. Currently, B2B brands in the D2C segment has seen significant growth, and we want to continue onboarding one to our partners everyday."

ALSO READ

With close to 1,000 D2C brands born last year, how Smytten is using sampling to ensure better adoption

The new investment will primarily be used for building many industry-first tech and data solutions. with advanced applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to optimise the marketing funnel for D2C brands — starting from new product development to consumer acquisition and retention.

Also, the platform plans to invest heavily to create a best-in-class servicing infrastructure across the country to widen the product trial touch points and strengthen the online service delivery to better the pre-purchase buying experience for consumers at scale.

He added the team is also looking to hire significantly. The team added they aim double down the resource strength across key functions including supply chain, marketing, research and insights, and accelerate growth to Rs 500 crore ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) by end of FY23.

"Currently, we are present in 12 categories, and are looking at adding five more categories, and category experts. We also are looking at significant brand building, and we expect every Indian to know about Smytten," explained Siddhartha.

He explained the team is also looking at strong consumer acquisition they already have 10 million consumers, and aim to add over 10 million more — totalling to over 20 million.

Siddhartha said, "We are looking at the HENRY (High Earning, Not Reached Yet), segment of consumers. These are between the age of 27 to 38 years and have an average income of Rs 8 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per annum. Currently, 70 percent of the users are women, however, with the new categories we will be expanding into we want to attract more men as users. Try before you buy, is not specific to women."

He explained the team is looking at deeper customer retention by creating multiple touch points, and expand the omnichannel categories. Siddhartha believes that omnichannel strategy will play a significant role in expanding and growing their consumer base, especially Tier II and III markets.

Also, the platform is going to invest heavily in creating a best-in-class servicing infrastructure across the country, to widen the product trial touch points and strengthen the online service delivery to better the pre-purchase buying experience for consumers at scale.

Swagat Sarangi, Co-founder at Smytten, added, “Our mission is to democratize access and experience of premium and D2C brands for the Indian consumers by offering direct-to-home product trials. We are building a robust tech platform to make the pre-purchase journey and decision making process of consumers very seamless by bringing in the power of trial experiences, data, content and community all together"

Currently, the team believes that the market will continue to grow significantly with a 5X to 50X growth in the brands on the platform. Smytten hosts 900+ brand partners on its platform across lifestyle categories, ranging from fragrances, beauty and makeup, male grooming, food and beverages, baby and mother care, health and wellness and offers product samples to consumers across these categories to help them make the right purchase decisions.

Kannan Sitaram, Partner at Fireside Ventures said, “We continue to believe in the development of an enabling ecosystem for the consumer brand revolution that's shaping up in India and Smytten is right at the forefront of it. Their integrated approach to consumer funnel and technological innovations to solve the key challenges faced by many D2C brands, makes them the unequivocal leader in a potentially $10 billion sampling and advertising market. The data-driven experiential solutions are already making waves and Smytten is becoming the first port of call for every consumer brand”

Many leading D2C and multi-national brands like Mamaearth, Plum, mCaffeine, WOW Skin, Maybelline, Man Matters, Bodywise, The Man Company, and more are already leveraging Smytten’s platform extensively to reach relevant users at scale and deliver first-hand product experience through sampling.

Japan Vyas, Managing Partner at Roots Ventures, quoted, “Smytten has grown more than 12X by revenue since the time we invested. We have participated in every round of fund raise they had and will continue to back them in future with even stronger conviction. We are very confident that Smytten is going to be a very large, profitable and fundamentally strong business in the consumer-tech space globally.”

Smytten also aims to go international by the end of this year, with expansion plans across Southeast Asia and the Middle East.