How B2B cross-border tech startup Geniemode is streamlining supply chain of lifestyle goods

After spending over a decade in the ecommerce sector, ex-Limeroad colleagues Amit Sharma and Tanuj Gangwani noticed several inefficiencies in the way global sourcing works for the fashion and home segments. 

“Difficulty in finding the right supplier, inadequate supply chain infrastructure, high levels of intermediaries, and lack of supply chain visibility are a few challenges faced by buyers while sourcing from India and other Southeast Asian (SEA) countries. However, despite these challenges, we believe India has the potential to build the best supply chain across the world in the fashion and home industry,” says Amit, CEO and Co-founder of Gurugram-headquartered Geniemode in a conversation with YourStory.

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Founded in May 2021, Geniemode, the B2B (business-to-business) cross-border tech startup for lifestyle goods, is working towards bringing transparency and meritocracy into the system, and helping buyers establish effective sourcing capabilities. 

“The process of evaluating suppliers, and establishing and managing supply chain connections is more complex than it appears. With Geniemode, buyers need not worry about these aspects. Our team of experts does supplier assessment, quality assurance, final qualification, and ongoing quality management. We provide complete solutions–from design to delivery–to our buyers,” he adds.

Geniemode claims to be a one-stop sourcing and supply chain solution startup with an innovative technology-based platform for retailers and suppliers dealing in home decor, textile, furniture, apparel, and accessories categories.

“We are building an extensive online solution for global buyers–ranging from mom and pop stores to global giant retailers. We’ve created a suite of digital solutions to automate the entire supply chain which brings speed, transparency, innovation, and profitability. Communication features built into the system allow buyers to quickly respond to vendors’ questions and raise concerns in real-time so that there’s no information asymmetry. It saves a lot of time and brings efficiency,” says Co-founder Tanuj.

Currently, Geniemode is operating in India, Bangladesh, Barcelona, the UK, and New York. 

The USP

As per Tanuj, “What separates us is that we are trying to transform the global sourcing for small and medium brick and mortar stores by democratising technology. We are empowering them by providing features, insights, and supplier networks that only big brands could afford. We are building a powerful and transparent supply chain within everyone’s reach.”

“We are also playing with fresh designs with new capsule collections every two months which will be available at an affordable cost. Also, once buyers are onboarded on our platform, they have an option to place repeat orders with clear visibility of inventory and timelines along with new collections that will be launched,” he adds.

Geniemode competes with the likes of Li & Fung. “Operating in the market for a long time, our competitors have secured capacities from good factories, which pose a challenge. We are trying to rope in new factories to compete by providing financial support to manufacturers to help them scale their production capabilities and execute big orders on time,” he adds.

The team

Amit and Tanuj met while working in Limeroad. They often discussed the sourcing loopholes and how these can be tackled by putting the right technology in place. Finally, they decided to build something to solve the problems that suppliers and buyers face, and started Geniemode.

The startup currently has a total team of 170+ people.

Funding and monetisation

So far, Geniemode has raised $37.5 million from Tiger Global and Info Edge India, among others. Its month-on-month GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) growth has been over 20 percent in the last 14 months. 

The company’s angel investors include Zomato’s founder Deepinder Goyal, CRED’s Kunal Shah, Apache Cassandra’s Prashant Malik, and EthAum Venture’s Pankaj Gupta.

“Currently, we have an annualised run rate of over $50 million. The company is always working on a profitable contribution margin. We plan to utilise these profits towards scaling the business. This is our key focus right now,” Amit tells.

“We started our operation in May 2021 with an investment of $200,000 from angel investors. We make margins on the products sold to buyers. We keep it variable based on the efforts and services we are providing,” he adds.

The way ahead

According to Allied Market Research, the global home decor market was valued at $616.6 billion in 2019, and is estimated to reach $838.6 billion by 2027, registering a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 3.9 percent from 2020 to 2027. 

Geniemode has clients including Next Plc, Peacocks, Inditex, Liverpool, Ashley Furniture, Mango etc across 16 countries. So far, it has onboarded over 70 buyers and 200 suppliers on its portal. 

“We have already delivered over two million quantities, and have bookings of over three million in the pipe,” Tanuj says.

“We’ve segmented our target group into five groups: medium, with an annual order volume of $1- $20 million; large, with an annual order volume of $20 million; importers that have large volumes with low margins; online retailers that are equivalent to large retailers in terms of value; and mom and pop stores–retail stores in the US. We've separate teams to onboard these buyers,” he states.

In terms of expansion, Geniemode is focusing on increasing its warehouse footprints to better serve its clients. Its revenue goal is to achieve an order value of $200 million by 2023.

Geniemode competes with the likes of GlobalFair, backed by Kunal Shah, Razorpay’s Harshil Mathur, and others. Its investor Info Edge also backed another B2B ecommerce startup called Bijnis which focuses on unorganised markets and allows retailers to purchase directly from the source.