BabyChakra to turn into marketplace for maternity and childcare products

BabyChakra, a social-discovery and commerce platform for maternity and childcare, is pivoting to become a one-stop destination for pregnant women, infants and new parents through its marketplace model. For this, the company is also busy strengthening its key leadership position with two new appointments.

BabyChakra, founded by Naiyya Saggi in 2015, has recently hired Rachita Choudhary, former Director of Engineering at FreeCharge, as Head of Engineering, and Samarth Sawhney, founding member of Jabong and Hopscotch, as its Head of Growth.

Choudhary, with her a decade of experience in e-commerce, will be building the marketplace model by assembling a strong parenting community product and driving growth. Sawhney will be responsible for driving the product, marketing and strategising the business as it transitions from a content-based networking platform to a full-fledged online marketplace for products and services.

Talking to BusinessLine, Saggi said the marketplace is still in the beta phase and will be soon available for users across the country. The company has already tied up with 1,500 Indian and international brands across categories such as baby food products, apparels, personal care, health and nutrition. Many of the products are already available on the platform.

“Ever since we launched our app in 2015, we have witnessed a 300 per cent increase in our conversations with our users. This also gave us enough confidence to extend our business from just being a content-driven community for parents to become a platform that serves and addresses all their needs,” Saggi said, adding that the platform also has services such as online consultations, events, celebrations, and maternity and baby photoshoots.

The firm, which has raised funds from Mumbai Angels, Arihant Patni’s family office and Singapore Angel Network, is not in a hurry to raise fresh funds at present, but focus on building the business.

According to Saggi, the babycare segment in India is as big as $40 billion and is growing exponentially. “This is one market that not been impacted by recession. Besides, with incomes rising and increasing awareness about babycare, we are witnessing massive growth in small towns, too. Our marketplace model will help address the needs of the people in this market that doesn’t have access to good products, brands and services.”

She added that BabyChakra plans to bring on board advanced technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing to help reach out to more parents in a highly personalised way. The platform already has over 2 million mothers with customised pages for themselves.