Juicy Chemistry is a direct-to-consumer (DTC) personal care brand founded in 2014 by husband-wife duo, Megha and Pritesh Asher.
The brand was recently funded in March, raising U$6.3m in funding led by Belgium-based investment firm Verlinvest.
It announced on June 16 that Spring Marketing Capital has made this strategic investment via its Skin in the Game Fund, which is anchored by Verlinvest.
The aim of this partnership is to help build the Juicy Chemistry brand with a unique narrative, a clear tone of voice and a strong, distinctive visual identity.
“We are going to be taking Spring Marketing’s expertise in to use for brand building exercise as far as Juicy Chemistry is concerned. This is not a fundraiser for capital requirements for Juicy Chemistry; this is from a strategic angle where Spring Marketing Capital will lend their marketing expertise to Juicy Chemistry’s growth story,” said co-founder Pritesh Asher.
Asher added that the company is eager to tap into Spring Marketing Capital’s experience in brand building for DTC brands.
“The entire team comes with 30 plus years of experience, having worked with Sequoia, heading marketing for all Sequoia backed brands previously. It comes with a slew of DTC experience that has built brands from all these nascent stages where Juicy Chemistry is right now.”
He elaborated that this strategic partnership would help the brand in all aspects of marketing, including social media communications, voice, tonality, colours, website, UX, UI and customer journey mapping experience.
Marketing crucial to growth plans
Building up its marketing prowess is crucial as the brand is poised to enter its next stage of growth.
“We have hit certain revenue figures and now with our series A investment coming into the fray, our next immediate target is to concentrate and focus on scaling operations from here onwards, reaching out to as many people as possible and bringing them into the Juicy Chemistry customer fold is going to be at the forefront of all our exercises as far as online and offline is concerned,” said Asher.
The company is expanding its e-commerce presence this quarter. It is currently available on about 10 platforms and it expects to raise that number to around 15 to 18.
One of the e-commerce platforms the company will be expanding on is Amazon. In the next three months, the brand will be available on Amazon’s Canadian, European, Australian and UAE platforms.
To meet international demand, the company is also working to raise its production capabilities.
“We are also increasing our production facility and adding a layer of capital infusion for capital expenditure that's what we are making for increasing our facility and churning out more products to meet the demand both domestically and internationally.”
It is also planning to expand domestically as well, where it sees huge potential.
“We are going to be deeply penetrating in metros as well to try and get as many new customers to join the Juicy Chemistry’s journey, and also penetrate slightly into tier two cities, and tier three cities, that's our focus.”
To do so, the company will be looking to invest in influencer marketing.
“We're going to be looking at more micro-level influencers to help us reach the right audiences that are present in tier two and tier three cities as well, and will do a little bit more regional content creation to help customers to engage with the brand at a deeper level,” said Asher.
2021 so far
Like most companies in India, the company has faced uncertain times this year so far.
“2021 started with a little bit of start-stop sort of situation with the COVID scenario. As far as sales are concerned, we are about 20% below our expectations this year. That is generally because of a slight dip in demand and operational difficulties related to COVID,” said Asher.
Asher said that the company expects sales to pick up “extensively” in the next quarter. It is aiming to close the year with revenue of INR75Cr (U$10.1m).
“Coming into the third quarter we expect to catch up on the lost time and focus on expanding our new customer base and becoming a more profitable venture, by third quarter we expect things to really start pushing in an accelerated portfolio company.”
