FirstClub, which is looking to make an entry into India’s bursting quick commerce scene, has announced an $8Mn seed round, making it one of the largest seed rounds raised by an e-commerce startup in the country. The round was led by Accel and RTP Global. Some of India’s top founders in the ecom space joined the round as angels, such as Flipkart founder Binny Bansal, CRED’s Kunal Shah, Myntra’s Mukesh Bansal (Myntra, Cult), Lalit Keshre (Groww) and Ankit Nagori (Eatfit). It also saw participation from Blume Founders Fund, Quiet Capital and 2am VC.
The startup’s approach to quick commerce is slightly different, as it is looking to offer products in a specific niche. FirstClub is looking to start with premium daily essentials, such as grocery, bakery, health among others. In order to ensure accessibility to high quality items, FirstClub aims to become a quick commerce-first omnichannel retailer, leveraging offline experience stores to highlight the difference in the quality of its merchandise.
“Our goal is to create a trusted platform that brings together the best of Indian regional specialties, international gourmet products, and innovative D2C brands. India deserves better and we’re here to empower Indian consumers, ensuring they never have to settle for less, but instead can enjoy the very best,” says Ayyappan R, Founder of FirstClub.
India has an aggressively expanding quick commerce market, a phenomenon that has failed to get much traction anywhere else in the world, but has attracted billions in the country. The market, which basically did not exist until a few years back, is already worth $3.5Bn in 2024, and expected to be over $9Bn in next couple of years. Online grocery is expected to be a $19Bn market in itself by 2025, thus opening up massive potential for newer businesses to thrive.
