Zlade, a D2C personal hygiene care brand, is in talks with its existing as well as new investors to raise a $5 million fund in its third round of institutional funding.
To date, the company has raised a total of $1.64 million in seed funding, with the latest being $1.5 million in 2023. The company’s investors include Indo Schottle’s Mr. Vijay Pusalkar, Shivanssh Holdings (Vikas Poddar's family office), Bharat Forge Ltd.’s deputy managing director, Amit Kalyani, and a few family offices in India and the United States.
Co-founder and CEO, Mihir Vaidya, told Outlook Business that the fresh funds will be used to expand the business into new product lines, channels and generating awareness in the Manscaping category. “Manscaping is a new category globally and has a potential market size of almost $1 billion due to its supernormal growth expected over the next 10 years in India alone," he said.
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"As we move on with the new funds, we are 100 per cent focused on the Body trimmers and the overall intimate grooming category which we dominate more than 15 per cent share in India. The Body trimmer category is growing by more than 50 per cent year on year. We will continue our work on creating awareness, expanding our channels, and also going global,” he said, adding that the company is also focusing on the markets of the United States and Europe in the long term.
Founded in 2015 by Mihir Vaidya, Suraj Chaudhari, and Harish Amritkar, Zlade has recently onboarded Milind Soman as its brand ambassador to maintain its bold approach towards the advertising
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The company recorded a net revenue of Rs 30 crore in FY24 and is looking at a revenue of Rs 100 crore in FY25. The company is primarily selling through online stores and has started experimenting with offline channels in Mumbai in the beginning of 2024. It expects to expand its offline presence when it touches the Rs 200 crore revenue mark.
