FirstCry, one of the leading e-commerce giant for baby care products has announced that they have acquired their rival company Babyoye Rs.362.1 crore. As per sources, this is said to be an all cash deal. With this acquisition, Firstcry consolidates itself as the number one player in the highly lucrative baby care segment.
Both FirstCry and Babyoye work on Omni-Presence model, Meaning, they have both online and offline store for their customers. Babyoye earlier had 120 stores across the country including the franchise owned stores and Firstcry around 180 stores. Post the merger, Firstcry will now be holding 300 of the stores under its brand.
Babyoye was earlier known as 'Mom and Me' and was founded by husband-wife duo Sanjay Nadkarni and Arunima Singh. It was later bought by Mahindra group which renamed the brand as "Babyoye" as a part of their brand building exercise.
Being one of the first few companies which had the online and offline stores, the only real competitor to them was Firstcry which had a backing of many angel investors including Ratan Tata and has till date has secured over $135 million in funding.
BabyOye, on the other hand, has struggled to raise fresh funds and has never been able to take off the ground (at least to match the stiff competition) after they had the initial investment from the Mahindra Group.
Post the merger, the both brands will be working common brand and the founder of FirstCry Supam Maheshwari, will be working as the CEO of the new venture which will be now known as ‘FirstCry.com—A FirstCry Mahindra Venture.’
Besides having Babycare products, Firstcry.com is also targeting the maternity wear segments with their unique maternity care products. They’ve even tied up with many leading brands including Hopscotch, Carter’s, Disney, Barbie, Braun etc and have been working with other local players like Biba girls, Aakriti, Archies to name a few.
