Baby products marketplace Hopscoth looking to raise $20 million capital

Hopscoth, an online baby products store founded by Harvard Business School alumni Rahul Anand and Lisa Kennedy in November 2011, is in talks to raise $20 million capital in a Series D funding round from existing and new investors. The company which had earlier raised $25 million from a clutch of investors including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Velos Partners, Jabbar Internet Group, LionRock Capital, Rise Capital and Toivo Annus, is now looking to tap new investor IIFL Seed Ventures Fund, a unit of IIFL Holdings Ltd. The existing fund raising will help the startup to forcefully compete with its larger rival Firstcry.

The startup sells sell apparel, storage units, shoes, toys, school bags, stationery and fashion accessories among others for children, having partnered with brands such as Campana, D’chica, Jaybee, Dress Up Dreams, Disney, Frangipani, Skiphop, Intex and Altius among others. Abhishek Goyal, co-founder at Tracxn, a start-up tracker, added that “This has essentially become a private label play, hence it becomes an interesting business as the margins are good. While some of the incumbents are marketplaces, the end destination is private labels. For instance, even Firstcry did not start with private labels, but they have a sizeable portfolio now. Baby care is a relatively small segment, but is expanding fast. There aren’t many offline businesses in this segment as well. Hence, there is ample opportunity to create a brand”.

Hopscoth is in direct competition with the segment leader Firstcry which has raised $130 million capital till now and has offline presence in about 300 physical stores in 125 cities.