The firm had pivoted from being a roll-up commerce company into a D2C brand in October last year. The move came as the overall roll-up industry has seen a slowdown in growth rates of acquired brands in the domestic market over the past year.
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The firm now operates as a single brand selling its own products through online as well as offline channels like owned and third-party stores. In contrast, roll-up commerce companies buy multiple online sellers and brands and often retain their separate identities, while working to improve performance through better management and shared expertise.
10club said Rao would spearhead its retail operations across both online and physical channels, while also shaping the firm’s category roadmap and leading day-to-day operations. Prior to this, Rao was managing director at Accenture’s retail division.
The firm now aims to open its first own physical store in the first half of FY25, Rao told ET. It is collaborating with D2C peers like Wakefit to sell products in their stores, while also working with distributors to sell its products in larger stores like supermarkets, she added.
10club is set to reach an annualised revenue run rate of Rs 100 crore by the end of March 2023, Rao said, adding that the firm was focused on growing sales profitably, without giving further details on the current profitability status.
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ET reported in June 2022 that 10club was looking to raise $30 million in a mix of equity and debt funding, led by Boston-based fund Olive Tree Capital, with Fireside Ventures and Secocha Ventures participating. At the time, the firm had said it was yet to close the funding round. Rao declined to comment on the current status of the funding.Founded in 2020 by Bhavna Suresh, Deepak Nair and Joel Ayala, the firm had raised $40 million in 2021 in one of the largest seed funding rounds at the time. The funding was in a mix of debt and equity. The firm had started off in the roll-up space which hosts a number of players like Goat Brand Labs, Mensa Brands and FirstCry-backed GlobalBees, functioning in categories such as fashion, home, fitness, and food.
Besides signs of a slowdown over the past year, the roll-up space has also seen signs of consolidation- while Mensa’s competitor Goat Brand Labs bought Chumbak and four other D2C brands in January last year, Hindustan Unilever Limited invested in Zywie Ventures, which sells plant-based supplement brand Oziva, and Nutritionlab in December 2022.
The fate of roll-up brands has been rocky outside India too. In November, The Wall Street Journal reported that US-based Thrasio, one of the pioneers of roll-up ecommerce which started by acquiring third-party sellers on Amazon, was preparing to file for bankruptcy.