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E-commerce has reached a mature stage in India and talking about e-commerce we are not just talking about e-commerce giants like Amazon, Flipkart, or Myntra. There are thousands of smaller e-commerce companies that have cropped up in India. In total there are over 19,000 e-commerce companies in India today. But despite the boom in the e-commerce sector, it is not easy for e-commerce companies to become successful and grow. This is where the e-commerce roll-up companies come into the picture. Though the concept of e-commerce roll up is still in its initial stage in India, it is gaining popularity fast.
E-commerce roll-up companies acquire e-commerce companies with the goal of scaling them up and making these brands profitable. However, e-commerce roll-up is not like takeovers. While in the case of takeovers the acquired brands lose their identity, in the case of roll-up e-commerce, the acquired brands do not lose their identity. This is the story of Powerhouse91, one of the pioneer roll-up e-commerce companies in India.
Powerhouse91 – Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Powerhouse91 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Gurgaon |
| Sector | E-Commerce |
| Founders | Aqib Mohammed, Shashwat Diesh & Nikhil Agarwal |
| Founded | 2021 |
| Website | powerhouse91.com |
About Powerhouse91
Powerhouse91 – Tagline & Logo
Powerhouse91 – Founders
Powerhouse91 – Mission and Vision
Powerhouse91 – Business Model & Revenue Model
Powerhouse91 – Funding and Investors
Powerhouse91 – Competitors
Powerhouse91 – Growth & Future Plans
About Powerhouse91
Roll-up e-commerce was started by the US-based Company Thrasio. Thrasio was the first of its kind that started acquiring the popular brands sold on Amazon, that were owned by small businesses. With the growth of e-commerce companies in India, roll-up e-commerce is slowly picking up in India too. PowerHouse 91 is one of the first movers in this sector in India.
Powerhouse 91 acquires promising yet smaller e-commerce brands and scales them up. Smaller e-commerce brands often face many challenges. From working capital challenges to tough competition and rising advertisement costs, there is a lot to manage. Powerhouse91 uses growth capital, shared resources, and deep eCommerce-focused optimizations to grow the acquired brands and take them to the next level. All in all, powerhouse91 is all set to transform smaller e-commerce companies into big brands.
Powerhouse91 evaluates the businesses on the basis of the data like review data around sales, costs, marketing, and supply chain. When a brand meets the required criteria, Powerhouse91 proposes to acquire it by paying a multiple of its profits. The payment made by Powerhouse against acquisition varies from business to business.
Presently Powerhouse91 has acquired businesses including personal care brands, sports/fitness, and general wellness brands. As per the founders, the company has developed deep optimization techniques across various aspects like marketing, supply chain management, and product development, which helps it scale the acquired businesses.
Regarding the criteria for selection of a business, Powerhouse91 founder Aqib Mohammad said, “We look at fast-growing evergreen categories doing at least Rs 100+ crores in online GMV each, with further acquisitions and product launches across emerging categories such as home & kitchen, gardening & outdoors, and personal care to name a few. While the company is flexible in terms of revenue size and category of the brand for its acquisitions, product quality, and genuine customer love are the most critical factors in Powerhouse91’s decision-making process,”
Powerhouse91 – Founders
Powerhouse91 was founded in the year 2021 by Aqib Mohammed, Shashwat Diesh, and Nikhil Agarwal.
Aqib Mohammed
Powerhouse91 founder Aqib Mohammad is an IIT Roorkee graduate, and a serial entrepreneur. In 2015 Aqib co-founded Xolvr.com, an edtech startup dedicated to assisting students from classes 6-10. In November 2016, Powerhouse91 got acquired by Hyderabad-based ed-tech company Next Education India Pvt. Ltd. In 2018, Aqib co-founded feminine hygiene brand ‘Azah’ along with his ex-Snap Deal colleague Shashwat Diesh, and is still associated with the company as a co-founder. In 2021, Aqib along with Shashwat Diesh and Nikhil Agarwal founded Powerhouse91. Other than being an entrepreneur Aqib has also been associated with companies such as Next Education India Pvt. Ltd, Mobiport Inc., and Effy, as a tech guy.
Shashwat Diesh
An engineer by education, Shaswat started his career at Olacabs as an operations manager in 2013. In 2015, Shaswat joined Snapdeal, where he worked as the project manager of Snapdeal’s C2C platform Shopo. In 2016, Shashwat went on to co-found hyper-local digital OOH advertising platform Vheeler. Vheeler had a unique concept where ads were displayed on intra-city cabs, and the advertisements kept changing based on the location of the cab. Shaswat also co-founded Flossy, an FMCG startup that dealt in Sugar confectionery. In 2018, Shaswat co-founded Azah with Aqib, and later the duo founded Powerhouse91 in 2021.
Nikhil Agarwal
Nikhil is a chartered accountant who has worked with brands like ABN AMRO, Standard Chartered Bank, and Bharti Enterprise. In 2018, Nikhil joined OYO as head of Corporate Development. Nikhil joined Powerhouse91 in 2021.
Powerhouse91 – Tagline & Logo
Powerhouse91’s tagline says, “We buy E-commerce Brands in India and take them to the Next Level.”
Himaya Presthitha
Powerhouse91 – Mission and Vision
As per the company’s website, Powerhouse91’s Vision is to build the Next-Generation Global Consumer Brands by bringing in their expertise to scale. The company’s mission is, “to help e-commerce brands achieve their full potential while creating delight in millions of customers’ lives.”
Rishabh Rathi
Powerhouse91 – Business Model & Revenue Model
Being a roll-up e-commerce platform, Powerhouse91 finds out high potential businesses and acquires them for a mutually agreed-upon sum of payment. As informed by the company, 70% to 80% of the payment is made in cash, at the time of signing of the final agreement. The remaining 20-30% of the payment is made based on the future performance of the acquired brand within a stipulated period of time.
Powerhouse91’s revenue model is simple. The company’s revenue comes from the revenue generated from the acquired businesses.
“We grow the brands, and we recover the value we invested in the brands,” says co-founder Aqib speaking about Powerhouse91’s revenue sources.
Pratyusha Srivastava
Powerhouse91 – Funding and Investors
Powerhouse91 has raised 3 rounds of funding to date. Here are the funding details of Powerhouse91.
| Date | Transaction Name | Money Raised | Lead Investor |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 31, 2021 | Seed Round | – | FJ Labs |
| June 30, 2021 | Seed Round | – | Crossbeam Venture Partners |
| February 27, 2021 | Seed Round | – | Titan Capital |
Powerhouse91 – Competitors
Though Roll-up e-commerce is new to India several companies have come up in this category. Here are some of the competitors of Powerhouse91:
Mensa Brands
Founded by ex Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan, Mensa Brands is a Unicorn Company. Mensa Brands acquires local companies operating in Fashion, Beauty, and Personal Care Categories.
GlobalBees
Founded by Nitin Agarwal and Supam Maheswari, GlobalBees is yet another player in the roll-up e-commerce space that attained the unicorn status. GlobalBees acquires startups across categories like beauty, personal care, home & kitchen, food, nutrition, sports, lifestyle, etc.
10Club
10 Club was Founded in the year 2020 by Ex Lamudi CEO Bhavna Suresh, 22feet co-founder Deepak Nair, and Class 5 Global co-founder Joel Ayala. Similar to Powerhouse91, 10 Club also acquires e-commerce businesses that are popular across sites like Amazon and Myntra.
GOAT Brand Labs
Founded by seasoned entrepreneurs Rishi Vasudev and Rameswar Misra Goat Brand Labs acquires digital-first D2C brands in the lifestyle space.
EvenFlow
EvenFlow was founded in 2021 by ex-Uber executives Pulkit Chhabra and Utsav Agarwal. This is yet another player that acquires e-commerce businesses and scales them up.
Upscalio
Based in Gurugram, Upscalio was also founded in 2021. The founders of this roll-up e-commerce startup are Gautam Kshatriya (former McKinsey & Company consultant), Saaim Khan( ex Bain &Company consultant), and Nitin Agarwal (former Disney Hotstar and Purplle marketing and growth executive).
Powerhouse91 – Growth & Future Plans
Powerhouse91 has acquired around 20 brands to date. In an interview given in the year 2021, Powerhouse91 founder Aqib Mohammed and Shashwat Diesh said that the startup is aiming to grow its revenue to Rs 500 crore annually till 2024. The company has plans to acquire more brands from different categories. Powerhouse91 has developed many tools, processes, and frameworks that are used to grow the acquired brands 15 to 20 times within around five years.
While the company is still very new and exact data about Powerhouse91’s revenue is not revealed, as per the founders, that they have been successful in turning the acquired brands successful.
Powerhouse91 – FAQs
Who Invested in Powerhouse91?
Powerhouse91 has raised funding from Investors like Titan Capital, Crossbeam Venture Partners, and FJ Labs. Individual Investors Haresh Chawla, Maninder Gulati, Varun Alagh, and Sujay Tyle have also invested in the company.
How much funding has Powerhouse91 raised to date?
Though the exact amount of funding received is not known, Powerhouse 91 has raised 3 rounds of funding since its inception.
Who are the founders of Powerhouse91?
Aqib Mohammed, Shashwat Diesh, and Nikhil Agarwal are the founders of Powerhouse91.
