FirstCry gets USD 26 mn funding from Valient Capital Partners

US-based hedge fund Valient Capital Partners has invested USD 26 million (over Rs 160 crore) in FirstCry, an online portal for baby and kids products.
FirstCry's other existing investors IDG Ventures India, Ventex Venture Holdings and SAIF Partners also participated in the Series D funding round.
"We plan to use the funds to focus on expanding our leadership across all channels (online, mobile and offline), as well investing in the growth of our private label (BabyHug) business," Brainbees founder and CEO Supam Maheshwari said.
Brainbees Solutions, which owns the 'FirstCry.Com' brand, started operations in late 2010.
It now has over 100 FirstCry-branded franchisee stores across 85 cities in the country, besides distribution partnerships with over 5,000 hospitals.

Mobile transactions currently contributes over 50 per cent of traffic for the company.

Pune-based FirstCry claims to be Asia's largest online store for baby and kids products and has over 90,000 items from more than 800 top international and Indian brands.
Financial services firm Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to this transaction.
Founded in 2008, Valiant Capital is a USD 2.7 billion global long/short equity hedge fund founded by Christopher R Hansen.
As per industry insiders, besides this round FirstCry has in the past raised a total of about USD 29 million in previous funding rounds with investors like SAIF Partners, Temasek Holdings, Vertex Venture Holdings, etc.

Buoyed by the growing popularity of online shopping in India, the e-commerce market, which is expected to reach USD 20 billion by 2020, is witnessing increased interest from investors both domestic and global.
Online marketplaces like Flipkart and Snapdeal have is the recent past have raised over USD 2 billion put together. Other small firms are also getting funding from various companies, venture funds and private equity firms.