GCPL said it will anchor the fund in addition to offering its expertise and experience to help founders build strong, sustainable companies…reports Asian Lite News
Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL) on Saturday said they will invest Rs 100 crore in Early Spring, a new Rs 300 crore early-stage consumer fund being set up by Spring Marketing Capital (Spring).
GCPL said it will anchor the fund in addition to offering its expertise and experience to help founders build strong, sustainable companies.
Spring’s first fund of Rs 150 crore continues to invest in companies at Series A and beyond. The Early Spring Fund will invest Rs 5-Rs 20 crore in each company, from seed to pre-series A stage.
“We intent to leverage our understanding of consumer space and learnings over the last decades to enable early-stage founders focused on building strong offline as well as online presence by offering differentiated products in India,” said Omar Momin, Head M&A, GCPL.
Spring is run by Raja Ganapathy, Arun Iyer and Vineet Gupta, who bring together decades of investing and brand building experience.
GCPL will offer expertise and experience enabling founders to build strong, sustainable companies.
“I would urge new-age companies to connect with and leverage Spring’s expertise and experience across the spectrum of brand building, manufacturing, product development, distribution and future capital raises,” Momin added.
Meanwhile, a new report said on Tuesday that about 80 per cent of early-stage startups plan to increase their workforce in 2023, while 15.78 per cent plan to maintain their existing headcount.
According to the 2023 FICCI-Randstad startup hiring trends report, nearly 92 per cent of these startups stated that their hiring decisions will primarily be driven by new project orders, additional funding raised from investors and expansion strategies.
“Startups create a large range of jobs as they grow and mature. As this report highlights, the initial opportunities arise as founders onboard the early team to help establish the business. A multiplier impact on job creation is seen in the growth and expansion stage when operations expand, and various initiatives mature,” Rohit Bansal, Chairman of the FICCI Start-up Committee, and Co-founder, AceVector Group & Titan Capital, said.
Notably, these startups have secured Series A and Series B funding, are well-capitalised, and are actively seeking to hire new talent.
While startups are planning to expand their workforce, a substantial portion, 31.92 per cent anticipate an increase in hiring by over 30 per cent.
About 28.08 per cent of companies plan to expand their teams in the 11-20 per cent range, according to the report.
The report also stated that hiring will primarily occur at the junior and mid-levels.
