Founded in October 2015 by former McKinsey consultant Shantanu Deshpande and 3 others, Bombay Shaving Company is an online company designing and selling high quality shaving products under their brand name.
Men’s grooming is a $1.5+ Bn market growing at ~25% CAGR. Among the fastest growing categories in consumer care, the space has seen large players over invest in the past 4 years. Nivea, Garner, Emami, Godrej, Dabur, Park Avenue and many more FMCG companies are focusing on this segment. The growth is due to many factors such as rapid urbanization, increased access to running water, changing nature of jobs, increased tendency to lifecast on social media, selfie culture and overall the increasingly discerning nature of today’s male consumer. This has led to many new startups entering the fray as well.
In addition to Shantanu Deshpande, the founding team includes Raunak Munot, former Director of Social Strategy at GroupM North America, Deepu Panicker, alumnus of IIT Bombay and former Supply Chain Specialist at McKinsey India and Rohit Jaiswal, alumnus of IIM Udaipur, formerly in rural marketing, sales and distribution channel development at EMEL Group, Nigeria.
Bombay Shaving Company’s vision is to disrupt the FMCG industry and own the men’s grooming category through creating thoughtfully differentiated products, internet first brands and intelligent data based subscriptions.
The company raised $650K from a clutch of 25 high profile angel investors constituting 11 senior partners from McKinsey, 6 current and former CEOs, and 8 VC professionals in their personal capacities. The list boasts of names including former Vice Chairman of TCS and advisor to the Prime Minister Mr. Subramanian Ramadorai and McKinsey India MD Mr. Noshir Kaka.
Mr. S Ramadorai says, “The team has developed a very high quality shaving system. It's not easy to get the razor technology right. Anyone can import a razor and sell it. But to design it takes a lot of time, effort and expertise. This is their differentiation and entry point. I have tremendous confidence in them having seen their speed of execution and detail orientation.”
Bombay Shaving Company offers an end to end shaving system as a one-time regimen followed by a subscription service. "Our subscription engine is extremely flexible. Users can choose their products, frequency of refills and pause/cancel/restart the plans anytime. We have a partnership with PayTM that allows for auto debit from users wallet after notifying him so that the user does not have to login or enter OTP every time. It is a hassle-free and seamless experience." said Deepu, Co-Founder and Head of Product Operations.
The company pays extra attention to detail while making their products. "We have almost 45 partners who work with us to design our products. We control every element of the value chain - be it industrial design, packaging, fragrance or raw material. We are deeply embedded in the product creation process and own the copyright to the products. Since these are not traded products, it helps us to get good margins with the right quality." says Rohit Jaiswal.
The team spent 6 months developing the products and launched them online in the month of June 2016 on their website. The company is seeing 40% growth month on month and despite the high price point, good traction even amongst the price sensitive segments. They are now planning to diffuse into other categories, list on online platforms through brand stores as well as enter offline retail in the next 12-18 months.
