G.O.A.T Brand Labs (GBL) on Monday said it has raised about USD 36 million (about Rs 267.8 crore) in funding, led by Tiger Global with participation from Flipkart Ventures - the early-stage venture fund of e-commerce major Flipkart. The series A round - which includes equity and debt - also saw participation from Mayfield, Nordstar, and Better Capital, a statement said.

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Some of the prominent angel investors, who are also part of this round include Virender Gupta of DailyHunt, Sujit Kumar (Udaan), Ranjan Pai (Manipal Group), Suhail Sameer of BharatPe, Neeraj Goenka (Texport), and Alex Kuruvilla (Managing Director Conde Nast India), it added. GBL intends to partner with digitally native brands by investing in them and providing them with a plug-and-play platform to accelerate their growth. It is in advanced discussions with at least 10 brands for acquisition and would be announcing the same shortly, the statement said.

The company is looking at brands in fashion, beauty, personal care, and Home and Kitchen space in the first phase, it added. G.O.A.T stands for Greatest of All Time. Through this venture, we are bringing together passionate entrepreneurs, their D2C brands, marquee investors, industry experts, and a dynamic team, who believe in the philosophy of partnering and nurturing. We want these brands to have access to the best resources so that they scale rapidly to become G.O.A.T s," GBL co-founder Rishi Vasudev said.

He added that the company will fuel the exponential growth of D2C brands across all channels - marketplaces, the brand's e-commerce platforms, offline retail, and global markets as well by providing them a tech-enabled platform for end-to-end integration replete with deep digital marketing expertise. GBL's integrated platform will help the brands maintain high efficiency and gain from economies of scale, the statement said.

"The potential of the D2C market in India will only continue to grow and GBL is well-positioned to effectively tap this while helping brands scale. We are excited to partner with Rishi, Rameswar, and the team, as they build their tech-enabled platform and make the best resources available to native brands”, Tiger Global Partner Scott Shleifer said. Ravi Iyer, Senior Vice President, and Head, Corporate Development at Flipkart, said the aim is to work with early-stage startups that have the potential to address emerging business and consumer requirements leveraging the power of technology.

"With the digital acceleration of commerce in India, we believe there will be a large opportunity for brand aggregators to partner with home-grown D2C brands and help them scale exponentially”, said Nikhil Khattau, MD of Mayfield India, added.