Other investors in the round included eleven McKinsey partners, Kiran Deshpande, former CEO of Tech Mahindra, Pankaj Gupta, Head of Operations of USL Diageo, Ravi Nigam, MD of Tasty Bite, and Maninder Gulati who heads strategy for Oyo.
The 10-month-old internet first company is looking to tap the largely monopolised and growing Rs 3,991 crore ($600 million) men’s grooming market with its differentiated six-part shaving regimen product range which it sells through a subscription model.
“The two barriers to enter FMCG have lowered significantly,” said Shantanu Deshpande, CEO at Bombay Shaving Company (BSC). “At scale marketing, which required deep pockets, could be replaced, to some extent, by efficient digital and social outreach and distribution networks could be replaced by ‘direct-to-consumer’ shipping.”
Founded by former McKinsey and GroupM employees earlier this year, the company is already averaging 400 orders a month, and plans to scale to about 30,000 orders a month in the next six months.
“Other than the blades for which we have a partnership with Feather in Japan, we have designed and formulated every single element of the system,” said Deshpande. “Once you buy, you can then subscribe to the blades and creams. The subscription is very flexible – you can choose your products, frequency of refill, pause/restart/cancel any time.”
The company’s business model mirrors that of US-based Dollar Shave Club, which was sold to Unilever for $1 billion in cash earlier this year and gained popularity for coming up with new ways to sell consumer goods, largely without the overhead of brick-and-mortar stores.
In India, men’s grooming has gone mainstream and several FMCG majors like Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Beiersdorf and Emami are spending heavily to tap new consumers.
BSC, which positions itself as a luxury brand, sells its six-set razor, brush, pre-shave scrub, shaving cream, post-shave balm and blades for Rs 2,995. The company has managed to tap suppliers of large FMCG companies largely by leveraging its investor connect.
Deshpande, 29, Founded BSC along with McKinsey colleague Deepu Panicker, Raunak Munot, former Director of social strategy at GroupM, and Rohit Jaiswal, who worked at Crompton Greaves. It distinguishes itself with its proprietary tech in shaving blades.
The company competes with large FMCG players as well as startups like LetsShave, which has partnered with US-based blades manufacturer Dorco to source its inventory.
Source: The Economic Times