SafetyKart joins hands with RedCliffe Hygiene, raises $1M from RedCliffe Capital
Gurgaon-based SafetyKart, an e-commerce platform for safety and hygiene product, on Wednesday announced that it has raised strategic investment from Dheeraj Jain, Managing Director at RedCliffe Capital.
RedCliffe Capital has bought a 10 percent stake in SafetyKart and a sizeable share in RedCliffe Hygiene with a board seat. Following the deal, Vikas Bagaria, Founder of SafetyKart, joins the board of RedCliffe Hygiene with Dheeraj, who will be launching GymSafe and MoskitoSafe in 100,000 stores by the end of this quarter.
SafetyKart is the latest addition to Dheeraj's hygiene product portfolio, which includes PeeSafe, GymSafe, Palmsafe, and MoskitoSafe. Dheeraj said,
We have made $1 million commitment across milestones and phases of the brand building of products under RedCliffe Hygiene.
SafetyKart will focus on the e-commerce platform while RedCliffe Hygiene will concentrate on production and distribution of these product lines.
Founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneur Vikas, SafetyKart will continue with the safety product lines mostly in child and car safety and will be led by a team of professionals. Bootstrapped nearly for four years, Safetykart posted revenues of Rs 1.2 crore by selling about 50,000 units of Peesafe during the last fiscal (2016-17).
PeeSafe, now owned by RedCliffe Hygiene, claims to be the leader in toilet seat sanitiser spray and has sold over 100,000 units in past 30 months, of which 50 percent in last 12 months. It is currently being sold in countries like Australia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Singapore and will soon be available in the UAE, Spain, Ghana and Malaysia. Vikas said,
We have developed the 'most sold' toilet seat sanitiser spray which has more than 50 percent repeat buyers. We were looking for the strategic partner who can help us scale the business and take it to a larger audience in India and abroad. Dheeraj believed in our concept and is equally passionate about this category and hence we decided to take a strategic investment from him.
PeeSafe will be pitched at relatively affluent young women in metros and tier-1 cities, typically in the age group of 18-35 years. Currently, the company targets college going women, or those in their early years to work and young mothers.
Market overview and competition
Wellness is one space where women are willing to spend money on compelling brands. PeeSafe claims to be treading in virgin territory, and primarily targeting women who are using toilets shared by three-four people (including public toilets and at home) in urban India. According to some estimates, close to 150 million women suffer from urinary tract infections (UTI) every year, out of which more than 75 percent get UTI from unhygienic toilet seats. Vikash adds,
With Peesafe we are targeting each and every home with western style toilet seats. Harpic has a Rs 600 crore market in India. We are targeting to gain market share as big as Harpic in the next five years.
Besides the consumer space, the company is looking to enter into partnerships with large public sector enterprises such as Indian Railways, the Airport Authority of India (AAI) and corporates.
Currently, there is no competition in this category in the country. Globally, Lizol in the US and SafeSeat in Australia manufacture similar products, though they are very expensive and not very convenient to use. PeeSafe on the other hand is convenient because unlike the two foreign brands it comes in aerosol sprays.
For GymSafe, there is no competition as "we haven't discovered any product targeted towards sanitisation of gym equipment", says Dheeraj. Moskito Safe is a non-alcohol-based natural mosquito repellent. So far, Godrej can be counted as the closest competitor for this product.
