Ratan Tata Invests in E-Commerce Baby Care Platform FirstCry

The Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons and Senior Advisor to IDG Ventures India, has invested an undisclosed amount in his personal capacity into Brainbees Solutions, which owns the FirstCry.com brand, the company said in a statement.

FirstCry is omni-channel player with presence across desktop, mobile and offline routes offering baby and maternity products in India.

It started operations in 2010 and has over 2 million customers. It has over 150 FirstCry branded franchisee offline stores across 100 cities in the country.

"Our vision is to simplify parenting by creating the necessary ecosystem and we have outgrown competitors to become the dominant driver in this space across mobile, online & offline channels," Brainbees Solutions founder and CEO Supam Maheshwari said.

A positive nod from a business leader of Tata's stature is a great vote of confidence in the way FirstCry has created the ecosystem and validation of the business approach leading to definitive path to profitability, Maheshwari added.

Brainbees has raised $69 million (roughly Rs. 462 crores) in capital over multiple rounds from marquee investors including IDG Ventures India, SAIF Partners, Vertex Ventures, Valiant Capital and NEA.

Earlier this week, Tata invested in online coupons venture, Cashkaro. The top industrialist has been aggressively investing in startups, ranging from e-commerce firms to cab aggregators. He has invested in firms like Snapdeal, Kaaryah, Urban Ladder, Bluestone, CarDekho, Sabse Technologies, Xiaomi, Ola and DogSpot.in.

Ratan Tata, who served as the Chairman of Tata Sons for over two decades until his retirement in 2012, is also associated with some venture capital funds as advisor, including Kalaari Capital and Jungle Ventures.