Premium baby and mother care brand Mother Sparsh on Wednesday bagged additional investment from ITC as part of its Series B fund raise. The company said it is in advanced talks to raise ₹90-100 crore in Series B funding round.
As part of this fund raise, FMCG major ITC, its existing investor, will be infusing about ₹13.5 crore. The funds will be deployed to expand its baby skin care and mother-oriented product portfolio.
In a BSE filing, ITC said it is increasing its stake in Mother Sparsh to 22 per cent, from the current 16 per cent. The company said it has “entered into an ageement to acquire further 1,000 Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares of ₹10 each of Mother Sparsh. Upon completion of the aforesaid acquisition, the company’s shareholding in Mother Sparsh will aggregate 22 per cent of its share capital (on a fully diluted basis).”
It added that this investment is in line with its continued interest in the fast growing direct-to-consumer (D2C) space in the ‘personal care’ category.”
To foster innovation
Himanshu Gandhi, Co-Founder and CEO of Mother Sparsh, said the objective behind the Series B funding round is to enhance R&D and foster innovation in the critical baby and mom care segment alongside sustained product portfolio diversification. The brand recently launched plant-based cloth diapers.
“An intrinsic innovative streak as a brand and the ethos of crafting products on need-based propositions by virtue of nature-oriented solutions is at the heart of Mother Sparsh. Our recurrent funding aims to strengthen this mission through R&D in the space and offering one-of-its-kind solutions for the needs of mothers and their little ones,” he added.