Foxy raises INR 40 cr in a Series A1 investment round

14th September 2020. New Delhi: EkAnek Networks, the parent company of Foxy and a start-up focussed on building eCommerce 2.0 in beauty and grooming, announced today the closing of a INR 40 cr Series A1 investment round. This round was led by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) which is a $300m venture fund managed by Falcon Edge Capital, a leading global alternative asset manager. Existing investors Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India, and Lightspeed India also participated with follow-on investments.

As part of this investment, EkAnek, which recently launched the online beauty and grooming platform Foxy.in, will expand its presence to Abu Dhabi. The Emirate will also be a strong global base for international expansion to the GCC, MENA and other regional markets. EkAnek plans to build a world-class team of data scientists, product managers and engineers located in Abu Dhabi.

FOXY.in offers customers a personalised shopping experience that incorporates selfie-analysis, targeted curation and differentiated fulfilment. Foxy will also offer local, regional and international brands a full-stack Shopify-plus B2B experience designed to drive deeper and seamless relationships between brands, influencers and shoppers.

EkAnek will provide brand partners a full stack solution to drive Direct to Consumer (DTC) operations including curation, brand logistics, marketing tools, influencer networks and video commerce. EkAnek already has over 120+ brands and over 6,000 beauty and grooming influencers on the platform.

Commenting on the fundraise, Kartik Sheth, the founder of EkAnek said "We are very excited to announce this fundraise; the faith reposed by marquee investors in EkAnek is a great validation of the idea and the team behind this venture. UAE is an exciting and evolved beauty & grooming market and we are privileged to partner with AWI to bring FOXY to GCC/ MENA.'

Speaking on the UAE expansion, Navroz Udwadia, AWI, said, "We are delighted to partner with EkAnek. Foxy will offer mobile-first consumers a differentiated approach to supply, curation and fulfilment of beauty products. In addition, EkAnek's unique B2B2C full-stack offering will drive tighter brand relationships with the platforms and consumers, to offer consumers globally an unrivalled experience of beauty products'

GV Ravishankar, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India LLP said "In India's rapidly expanding lifestyle market, purchase decisions are increasingly being driven by personalized content and relevant influencers, especially in non-metros. Kartik's deep experience in having built large brands and FOXY's highly personalised commerce-through-content strategy uniquely positions them to capture this fast growing space, putting them on an accelerated path to value creation.'

"The beauty space in India is on the cusp of a revolution as more and more users from tier 1 and tier 2 towns embrace new products and trends, and all this consumption of both content and products is going to be driven by a mobile-first experience that FOXY has equipped itself to uniquely deliver,' said Bejul Somaia, Lightspeed India.

"FOXY is attempting to fundamentally disrupt the $10B Indian beauty market by creating a new online distribution layer coupled with a differentiated consumer journey. We believe categories like beauty need a fun, interactive shopping experience which is very different from what traditional e-commerce companies are able to provide. The founders of EkAnek have previously demonstrated the ability to start and scale consumer businesses and we are thrilled to continue to partner with the FOXY team', said Tarun Davda, Managing Director, Matrix India.

About EkAnek Networks:
EkAnek (as the name suggests) is one platform, with many applications all of which are building toward eCommerce 2.0 which will shift the focus from "buying to "shopping' - a mix of discovery, social engagement, entertainment and advice.

Founded by veterans, the EkAnek founding team is from India's top institutes (IIM Ahmedabad, IIT KGP, ISB, Ashoka, etc) and brings together experience from companies like Airtel, Unilever, McKinsey & Company and established startups like Wynk Music, PayU, PayTM, OfBusiness, LimeLabs, Builder.ai, etc.

EkAnek was recently selected in the 2020 cohort for Google for Startups (GFS) Accelerator India, a 20 strong cohort that will have mentorship from the Google network. They are advised by some of the best known angels in the Indian startup ecosystem including Rajan Anandan, Anand Chandrasekharan, Kunal Shah, Neeraj Arora and Srini Gopalan. For more information, please visit www.ekanek.io and www.foxy.in

About Alpha Wave Incubation:
Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) is a $300m venture fund managed by Falcon Edge Capital. AWI has a dedicated team across London, Bangalore and Abu Dhabi.

The fund invests in early stage tech-enabled, disruptive start-ups in India, South East Asia, and beyond. In addition to providing outstanding founders with early-stage capital, AWI offers access to an unrivalled set of support mechanisms for business-building in Abu Dhabi, while also helping companies expand globally and open up new markets in the GCC/MENA region and beyond.

About Falcon Edge Capital:
Falcon Edge Capital is a diversified global alternative asset manager co-founded in 2012 by Rick Gerson, Navroz D. Udwadia and Ryan Khoury. Falcon Edge manages approx. $4bn in assets across public and private markets. Falcon Edge has offices in New York, London and Bangalore. The firm offers a variety of investment products and strategies that cover a number of asset classes, themes and geographies.

About Matrix Partners India:
Matrix Partners India is an investment firm with approximately $1 billion under management. Founded in 2006, the firm invests in companies targeting the Indian consumer and enterprise market at the seed, early and early growth stages. Matrix India has invested in several market leading companies such as Ola (mobility), Quikr (online classifieds), Practo (digital health platform), Dailyhunt (mobile local language platform), Treebo (digital hotel chain), Limeroad (social e-commerce platform), Mswipe (mobile POS), Five Star Business Finance (SME lending), OfBusiness (credit led B2B marketplace), Ola Electric (electric vehicles), Razorpay (payments), Stanza Living (tech enabled student housing platform), Vogo (scooter sharing), DealShare (social commerce platform), Bijnis (digital B2B marketplace) and Cloudnine Hospitals (leading chain of maternity hospitals), among others. Matrix India has advisory offices in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. Matrix Partners has a global network of funds investing in the US, China and India, with approximately $5 billion under management. Further information is available at www.matrixpartners.in. To know more about our investment philosophy & ideologies, check out the #MatrixMoments podcast series.