Smytten raises $6 mn in Series A funding led by Fireside Ventures

Sampling and engagement platform for D2C brands Smytten has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Fireside Ventures. 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.

The new investment will primarily be used for scaling up the user base and building industry-first tech and data solutions to optimise the marketing funnel for D2C brands starting from new product development to consumer acquisition and retention.

Smytten was founded by ex-Googler, Swagat Sarangi, and ex-Unilever executive, Siddhartha Nangia with a strong focus to digitise the pre-purchase product trial experience for consumers. With more than 5 million users, Smytten is one of the largest direct-to-consumer sampling platforms in India and offers this unique convenience to online consumers to try products in the comfort of their homes at a very minimal or no cost before they decide to buy.

Commenting on the fundraise, Smytten Founders Swagat Sarangi and Siddhartha Nangia said, “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 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. "

Smytten today hosts more than 700 D2C brand partners on its platform across varied categories and enables millions of product samplings every month for them.

The founders further added that the company is focused on re-crafting the standard playbook of brand creation with the deep tech solutions. "We are building our offering based on the trial intent and feedback from millions of consumers. It will empower the next generation of D2C brands with actionable insights and a captive audience to scale their business very fast," said the founders.

Smytten's data-driven targeted sampling approach and real-time feedback from millions of users post sampling has allowed the company to establish itself as one the most efficient channels for Indian and international D2C brands to acquire new users and launch new products.

Leading D2C brands like Mamaearth, Plum, mCaffeine, etc. are already leveraging Smytten’s platform extensively to reach relevant users at scale and deliver first-hand product experience through sampling.

Varun Alagh, co-founder of MamaEarth, said “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.”

Also, the platform is going to invest heavily in creating a best-in-class servicing infrastructure across the country, to widen the product trial touch points and strengthen the online service delivery to better the pre-purchase buying experience for consumers at scale.

Kannan Sitaram, venture partner, Fireside Ventures, and new board member, Smytten, said, “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. We at Fireside believe 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."

Smytten had earlier raised an investment of $1.5 million in its pre-series A from Roots Ventures. Japan Vyas, Managing Partner, Roots Ventures said “Smytten’s revenue has grown 8X since the time we invested. We strongly believe that the integrated approach taken by Smytten to solve the pre-purchase conundrum for consumers in the D2C space will see them lead a potentially $10B sampling and advertising market in the projected $100B D2C brand market by 2025. It also has a great product-market fit for large international markets like Southeast Asia and the Middle East making them the first port of call for every consumer brand”

Smytten also counts some marquee angel investors such as Rajan Anandan, ex-MD of Google India & South East Asia, and many other industry veterans as its early backers.