Startup Originals Team
FirstCry started in 2010 as an online store aiming to serve a glaring need: quality baby, maternity and children’s products in India. What began from a small setup in Pune has grown into a nationwide multi-channel retailer, blending e-commerce and offline stores – becoming many parents’ go-to destination for kids and baby essentials.
How the Idea Was Born: The Founders’ Motivation
The company was founded by Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha under the parent company BrainBees Solutions.
The spark for FirstCry came from personal experience: after becoming a parent, Supam realized that India lacked a reliable, organised marketplace for baby-care and kids’ products. Essentials were often hard to source, quality was inconsistent, and parents had to depend on offline stores, or sometimes overseas sourcing. This gap inspired the founders to build a comprehensive platform offering convenience, variety, reliability and trust.
Building the Business: Products, Channels & Growth
- Wide Product Catalogue: FirstCry’s offering grew rapidly to include a vast variety of items – diapers, clothes, toys, feeding and nursing products, maternity products, accessories, baby-care essentials, and more. Today, it serves needs across newborns to kids and maternity, covering nearly all parenting requirements.
- Omnichannel Strategy: Recognizing that not all customers are online-first, FirstCry blended e-commerce with offline retail. Alongside its website and mobile app, it operates – or franchises, hundreds of brick-and-mortar stores across India under FirstCry and its in-house labels. This hybrid model helped reach diverse geographies, including smaller cities and towns.
- Private-label & Own Brands: To offer cost-effective, quality-controlled alternatives, FirstCry launched its own brands (e.g. under name “BabyHug”), giving customers an affordable, reliable option without compromising on standards.
- Customer Trust & Convenience: The founders prioritized user-friendly experience: dependable delivery, reliable product quality, good customer service, factors that helped the startup build trust among parents, who value safety and reliability for their children’s products above all.
Funding, Expansion & Milestones
Since its early days, FirstCry attracted significant investor interest:
- Early funding came in 2011 and 2012 from investors such as SAIF Partners and IDG Ventures.
- Over time, it raised larger rounds – including a major funding round led by global investors, helping it scale operations, expand inventory and build logistics & supply-chain infrastructure.
- By mid-2020s, FirstCry had achieved unicorn status, with a market valuation in the billions.
- In August 2024, the company – via its parent BrainBees, went public with an IPO, marking a major milestone in its journey from startup to public company.
As of fiscal 2025, FirstCry’s annual revenue reportedly crossed several thousand crores, demonstrating that demand for childcare and kids’ products remains strong and that FirstCry has maintained a dominant position in this niche retail segment.
Challenges & How FirstCry Navigated Them
The journey was not without obstacles:
- The Indian market for baby and kids’ products was fragmented and under-organized when FirstCry started – making supply, logistics, and trust significant challenges. The founders had to build a reliable logistics & warehousing network and ensure consistent product quality.
- Competition increased over years – global e-commerce players, other niche kids-product retailers, and offline stores all competed for the same customer base. To stay ahead, FirstCry doubled down on its omnichannel presence and convenience.
- Maintaining affordability while sourcing globally, managing inventory, and ensuring supply-chain efficiency – all while scaling rapidly – required careful balance between growth and execution. Their private-label initiatives helped manage costs, while their hybrid sales model (online + offline) broadened reach.
Despite these, FirstCry’s commitment to convenience, quality and trust helped it carve out a strong market position.
Why FirstCry’s Story Inspires: Key Lessons
- Solve a real problem you have experienced – the founders’ insight came from personal parenting struggles; this authenticity is reflected in their customer empathy and product choices.
- Blend online and offline wisely – pure online doesn’t always work for segments needing trust and tactile experience; FirstCry’s omnichannel model helped reach across demographics and geographies.
- Balance growth with reliability and quality – when dealing with baby/kids products, trust, safety and consistent quality are non-negotiable; FirstCry invested accordingly.
- Adapt and diversify – with private-label brands, wide product range, and omnichannel presence, FirstCry stayed flexible and responsive to customer needs.
Conclusion: A Startup That Became a Parenting-Era Mainstay
From a small online store in 2010 to a publicly listed retail giant by 2024, FirstCry’s journey demonstrates how tackling a real need, access to trustworthy baby and kids’ products, can evolve into building a large-scale business. With strong leadership, deep customer understanding, and a hybrid retail model, FirstCry transformed baby-care retail in India.
For millions of Indian parents, FirstCry is now more than a brand, it’s a trusted partner through the early years of parenting.
