Bombay Shaving Company Generates Series A Funding Led By Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Ltd.

Bombay Shaving Company is a Delhi-based firm for men’s personal care products such as razors, scrubs, blades, brush, and cream. BSC was started in October 2015 by Shantanu Deshpande, Deepu Panicker, Rohit Jaiswal, and Raunak Munot. The BSC has more than 30 products in its catalog which includes shaving, bath and body, skin, and beard care products. The firm claims to have more than 80 thousand customers and is available at 500 physical stores.

Bombay Shaving Company has raised an undisclosed Series A funding led by a bunch of investors. The new funds will be spending the on brand building, development of the products, and to raise technology, quantity, and sales of the company. The funding round was head by Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Limited, a subordinate of Colgate-Palmolive American worldwide manufacturing company.

Related: Yalochat raises $8 Million fresh funds in series A funding round

According to documents filed with Registrar of Companies and accessed from data research platform Tofler, Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Limited based in Hong Kong, the company has raised a 14 percent minority stake in BSC during the recent fundraising round. The primary investment generated about $2.6 million (INR 18 crore). The company claims to have a 100 percent quarterly growth rate.

“Establishing a consumer brand in India requires time, investment and long-term vision. After possessing proven product-market fit with assured repeat sales and product responses, we are gazing to scale the brand,” said the CEO Shantanu Deshpande and a former McKinsey consultant.

In the previous round of funding, BSC generated $2.3 million (INR 16 crore) pre-series A funding round led by Fireside Ventures in August 2017. It also grasped $600,000 (INR 4 crore) in an angel funding round from 25 plus investors in August 2016, led by the former vice-chairman of TCS and advisor to the Prime Minister, Subramanian Ramadorai, and the managing director of McKinsey India, Noshir Kaka.

Related:  Byju values $5.4 Billion after raising funds from General Atlantic and Tencent

“We met with the crew of Colgate-Palmolive and were thrilled by the synergies across technology, direct-to-customer distribution, and supply chain. The fresh crew at BSC stands to grasp decades of experience in Colgate-Palmolive to build the BSC brand and reach,” said S Ramadorai.

The beard grooming market in India targets more than 2.5 crore customers and has a market size of $290 million (INR 2,000 crore) market, with the estimated growth rate of 30 percent annually by FMCG. E-commerce giants such as Flipkart, Amazon, Nykaa, and others are some of the famous platforms for selling male grooming products online.

Currently, India’s overall grooming, beauty, and cosmetics industry holds a $6.5 billion (INR 45,000 crore) market and is estimated to grow till $20 Billion (INR 1 lakh crore). The other top beard and men’s grooming brands are Ustra, Beardo, TryMen, Nivea and others.

The founder of Fireside Ventures and Board member at Bombay Shaving Company, Kanwaljit Singh said, “Young men in India are calling for more pensively made products and better choices. The Bombay Shaving Company’s team has been able to rapidly ramp up its products portfolio and enlargement of its online portal. We see Bombay Shaving Company building a firm brand with an emotional approach and a compelling product narrative.”