Japan's M&S Partners invests unrevealed sum in women social network Healofy

Prior to this, the Bengaluru start-up raised $9.5 mn from Omidyar Network India, Chinese unicorn BabyTree Group and BAce Capital, a fund backed by Alibaba's Ant Financial

Hiro Mashita-led Japanese investment firm M&S Partners has invested an undisclosed sum in Healofy, which the company claims is India's largest and fastest-growing women social network. Healofy connects millions of women across different stages of life - from getting married, to becoming a mother, and beyond.

Having started as a pregnancy and parenting community in 2016, Healofy seeks to empower women by enabling them to consume relatable information, create content, and showcase their skills sets. This peer-to-peer platform also enables women to connect and influence other like-minded women based on similar language, location, life-stage, as well as interests such as fashion, food, fitness, lifestyle, learning different skill sets and earning from home.

Prior to this, the Bengaluru-based start-up raised $9.5 million from Omidyar Network India, BabyTree Group, China's largest parenting platform, BAce Capital, a fund backed by Alibaba's Ant Financial Services Group, and angel investors. With over 2 million app downloads, the app has successfully created a strong community of over 500,000 daily active users (DAUs) and one million monthly active users (MAUs). The platform sees 1.5 million-plus monthly web visits.

According to a report by Google India on gender equity, women are reluctant to network online on social platforms due to the fear of harassment and lack of a safe community. They also often struggle to find relevant content and supportive communities online. Healofy wants to create a vernacular social network exclusively for Indian women to feel informed, safe and empowered, allowing them to consume, connect, and transact in a trusted space.

Healofy caters to women across Tier-2, 3 and 4 cities through content in their native language. Further on, it plans to help women attain financial independence by helping them earn from home via network e-commerce.