Online consumer sampling platform in the premium lifestyle space, Smytten has raised $6 million in Series A led by Fireside Ventures, which funds digital-first consumer brands and has invested in D2C startups like Mamaearth, boAt & Bombay Shaving Company among others.

The round saw participation from Sharrp Ventures (Mariwala family office), Survam Partners (Suman Kant Munjal family office), and Waao Partners (Pratul Shroff family office). Existing investor Roots Ventures also participated in the round.

“With D2C becoming mainstream, brand marketers need fresh, sharper solutions that can help in creating the right brand experience for consumers who are on the lookout for superior quality products. Fireside believes the development of an enabling ecosystem presents a great investable opportunity and will be a big game-changer for the consumer brand revolution that's shaping up in India,” said Kannan Sitaram, Venture Partner, Fireside Ventures, and new board member, Smytten.

India’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) sector has seen a flurry of activity for the past few years as the e-commerce market matures and evolves. According to a recent report by Praxis Global Alliance (PGA) Labs and Knowledge Capital, between 2014 and 2020, investors have pumped in $1.4 billion into D2C brands

Fuelled by over 700 million internet users, online shopping in India is at an all-time high. The country has added 80 million online shoppers in the last three years alone to reach 130 million, as per an Avendus report. And the D2C brands have found the perfect opportunity to capitalise on the wave.

However, for many of these brands, it is difficult to reach out to consumers in person and help them sample their products. That’s where a platform like Smytten comes in to help bridge the gap!

It’s an app platform that offers discovery, trials and purchase of ‘premium’ brands across multiple categories like beauty and grooming, food and beverages, health and wellness, fragrances, smart technology, accessories, services and experiences and is targeted towards the upper-middle class.

Sampling and trial have been a tried-and-tested method for brands to target consumers and give them an experience of their offering. Smytten claims that the pre-purchase buying experience will be the biggest enabler and will fuel the burgeoning Indian D2C market which is projected to touch $100 billion in the next 4-5 years.

“We believe this sampling-led tried-and-tested method of customer engagement will change the way D2C brands and consumers interact, making it more immersive and experience-based,” said Swagat Sarangi and Siddhartha Nangia, Founders, Smytten.

The new investment will primarily be used for building many industry-first tech and data solutions to optimise the marketing funnel for D2C brands, the company said. A report by Euromonitor International states that India is the fastest-growing emerging market for luxury goods. In fact, the market is believed to be growing at approximately $225 million a year, significantly stronger than Australia and Singapore.

Smytten claims to host over 700 D2C brand partners on its platform across varied categories and enables millions of product sampling every month for them. Many leading D2C brands like Mamaearth, Plum, mCaffeine, etc. are already leveraging Smytten’s platform extensively to reach relevant users at scale and deliver a first-hand product experience.

“Smytten has worked out to be one of the most efficient, targeted, and data-driven sampling platforms for us as we aggressively scale our business. Our sampling ROI has been great on Smytten and it has helped us drive trials amongst a lot of first-time users for mamaearth very efficiently,” said Varun Alagh, Co-founder of MamaEarth.

Founded in 2015 by Swagata Sarangi and Siddhartha Nangia, the company claims to have clocked 8x revenues since April, when they raised $1.5 million in its pre-series A from Roots Ventures. The company said it witnessed a 100% growth in its user base post-pandemic.

The platform is now looking to heavily in servicing infrastructure to widen the product trial touch points and strengthen the online service delivery for a better pre-purchase buying experience for consumers at scale.

First Published:Aug 24, 2021 5:27 PM IST