The new stores will be a mix of BabyHug and FirstCry exclusive stores across India, many of which will be in non-metros
Mumbai: Leading mother and baby products retail company Brainbees Solutions Ltd. plans to open 380 stores across India in three years—from 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2026, said Supam Maheshwari, chief executive officer of the company while announcing the date and details of the company’s upcoming initial public offering [IPO] on Thursday.
The stores will be a mix of BabyHug stores, which only sell the entire range of BabyHug branded products, and FristCry exclusive stores, which are multi-brand outlets stocking private labels and third-party products.
The number of new BabyHug mono stores it plans to open by 30 September 2026 is 193. Of these, 38 will be opened in the financial year [FY] 2025, 89 in FY2026, and 66 between 1 April 2026 and 30 September 2026, the company revealed in its Red Herring Prospectus [RHP].
The company also plans to open stores of other formats like stores for a specific age group or mono-brand outlets of other brands from its stable. Currently, BrainBees sells a range of products under home brands FirstCry, Pine Kids, BabyOye and BabyHug with BabyHug being its largest-selling and oldest brand. “In the future, we may set up new stores under other formats,” it said in the RHP.
It recently opened the first Pine Kids exclusive outlet at Z Square Mall in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. It also opened a ‘FirstCry 6-12’ store.
The FirstCry and other format stores will be set up under its subsidiary Digital Age.
In all, 162 stores will be opened under Digital Age by 30 September 2026. Of these, 36 stores will open in FY2025, 72 in FY2026, and 54 from 1 April 2026 to 30 September 2026.
While neither the company nor its representatives spoke about the locations of the new stores, the RHP revealed that the company may open stores in certain geographies where it is already present and new geographies where it does not have a direct physical presence. These include cities namely, Ahmednagar in Maharashtra; Tumakuru and Koppal in Karnataka; Khandwa, Neemuch, Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh; Dwarka in Gujarat; Mapusa in Goa; Nizamabad in Telangana; Tenali and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh; Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu; Kalimpong in West Bengal; Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh; Nainital in Uttarakhand; Phagwara, Gurdaspur and Ferozepur in Punjab; Kasargod in Kerala, Shimla in Himachal Pradesh; and Anantnag in Jammu and Kashmir. “However, these locations are only indicative in nature and will be determined in accordance with the annual business plan of our Company which will be approved by our Board of Directors,” Brainbees said in the RHP.
Brainbees runs company-owned company-operated [COCO] stores as well as franchise-owned, franchise-operated [FOFO] stores.
As of 31 March 2024, the company had a network of 1,063 FirstCry and BabyHug stores in 533 cities in 28 states and five union territories across India covering over 2.12 million square feet of retail space. Out of these, 435 were COCO stores, which included 284 BabyHug COCO Stores. The remaining 628 are operated by its franchise partners on an asset-light franchisee model, where capital expenditures and operating expenditures, including working capital, are borne by the partners.
“Typically, BabyHug stores are spread across 1,500 sq. ft. while FirstCry stores are spread across 3,000 sq. ft.,” Maheshwari shared.
The 2010-founded Pune-based omnichannel retailer aims to raise Rs 4194 crore through its public issue, which will open on 6 August and close on 8 August.
The company has fixed a price band of Rs 440-465 a share and a lot size of 32 shares.
Of the funds raised, the company will use Rs 93.9 crore to open exclusive COCO BabyHug stores, covering a total area of 0.29 million sq. ft. Furthermore, it has earmarked Rs 169 crore for setting up new COCO stores under the FirstCry brand and other home brands covering an area of 0.49 million sq. ft., the company revealed in its RHP.
The company also plans to open new stores in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), a market it entered in 2022 at an investment of Rs 72.6 crore.
FirstCry started online operations in 2010 and opened its first store in June 2011 “in an effort to be physically closer and provide a personal experience to our customers,” it said in the RHP.
In FY2024, the company had a Unique Transacting Customer base of 9.11 million, which grew significantly from 6.86 million in FY 2022.
With products from 7,580 brands, FirstCry is recognised as having the largest product assortment in Asia-Pacific excluding China, Maheshwari shared.
It has a network of over 900 contract manufacturers across India and overseas and 160,842 general trade retail touchpoints in the country.
The FirstCry mobile application in India had been downloaded more than 127 million times in FY2024.
“About 74% of our gross merchandise value [GMV] comes from online while about 25% comes from our over 1000 stores,” Maheshwari said.
While the brand is present in the United Arab Emirates [UAE] and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia [SKA], in the coming years, it plans to focus mainly on growing in India. “India has a total addressable market of $120 billion for children care and we will be focussing on growing the multi-channel opportunity in India, UAE, and KSA,” Maheshwari said.
