Powerhouse91 Raises Funding From Global Investors

Powerhouse91, the tech-driven company acquiring and growing e-commerce brands in India, on Tuesday announced that it has onboarded multiple marquee global investors, raising an undisclosed amount of capital from them.

One of the incoming investors, FJ Labs, is a US-based venture capital firm that focuses on marketplaces and consumer-focused businesses. The investment in Powerhouse91 marks FJ Labs’ entry into the Indian roll-up space. The funding also included participation from Maninder Gulati, global chief strategy officer, OYO; and Haresh Chawla, partner, True North Co.

Ryan Gnesin (co-founder, Elevate Brands) and Sujay Tyle (co-founder, Merama), who have successfully built and scaled roll-up ventures in the US and Latin America, have backed Powerhouse91 in their individual capacity. Varun Alagh, founder, Mamaearth –D2C brand, also joined Gnesin and Tyle. 

“Securing the backing from such marquee investors reaffirms our thesis towards building a successful roll-up business, tailor-made for the Indian E-commerce ecosystem. With the likes of FJ Labs, Ryan, Sujay, and Varun on board, the opportunities for cross-learning will be immense,” said Nikhil Agrawal, co-founder, and chief corporate development officer, Powerhouse91. 

“We see this as a significant addition to our knowledge and expertise pool and consequently our ability to scale the acquired brands multifold over the course of next few years. Our shared vision towards creating an efficient e-commerce growth engine that helps us scale while maintaining healthy profitability is what brought us together in the first place,” shared Aqib Mohammed, co-founder, Powerhouse91. 

The platform is co-founded by Aqib Mohammed, Nikhil Agrawal, and Shashwat Diesh, acquires high-potential consumer brands to scale them through deep e-commerce focused optimizations and product innovation.

"When building OLX I saw first-hand the massive potential of e-commerce in India. We at FJ Labs are thrilled to be backing the Powerhouse91 team as they grow the next generation of Indian e-commerce brands," added Fabrice Grinda, founding partner, FJ Labs.

The company had recently announced its entry across multiple categories through brand acquisitions.