The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has approved initial public offering (IPO) plans for two companies backed by SoftBank. These companies are FirstCry, an omnichannel retailer of baby products, and Unicommerce, a software developer for e-commerce businesses.
FirstCry, based in Pune, also offers mother care products. After the regulator requested clarification on some key performance indicators (KPIs), they had to resubmit their draft IPO application to Sebi in April.
This baby and mother care retailer, backed by Premji Invest, aims to raise $218 million (approximately Rs 1,815 crore) in fresh funding. This will involve issuing new shares and selling existing shares (around 54 million) held by current investors.
While they filed for an IPO in January, their strategy focused on existing shares. Investors in the Gurugram-based company plan to sell shares worth around Rs 480-490 crore through the public offering. This means there won’t be any fresh funding by issuing new shares.
Unicommerce also clarified its ownership structure. An addendum to their draft IPO prospectus recently listed SoftBank, which holds a nearly 30% stake, and Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal as the company’s promoters.
SoftBank signed an indemnity agreement with Unicommerce’s co-founders, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. This protects SoftBank and its executives from potential legal issues related to Unicommerce’s promoter responsibilities.
For the nine months ending December 2023, FirstCry reported operating revenue of Rs 4,814 crore. However, they also incurred a net loss of Rs 278 crore. Despite the loss, their gross sales were strong at Rs 5,650 crore. Interestingly, nearly 77% of their sales come from online channels, with the remaining 23% from offline retail stores.
