We’re excited to announce our follow-on investment in Join Ventures (“JV”), India’s fastest-growing online platform for gifting and celebrations.

Join Ventures is on a mission to build the go-to destination for every special occasion. The company runs IGP.com – India's largest online platform for occasions; Interflora India – India's largest digital-first premium flower brand. In addition, the company runs IGPforBusiness – a leading B2B2C partner for reward management and corporate gifting. The company also recently launched Masqa – an indulgent/celebratory food brand for gifting.

JV serves 100mn+ visitors every year across 100 countries with its design-to-delivery consumer experience, farm-to-table supply chain, and an extensive same-day delivery network powered by three mother warehouses and 40+ dark stores

With a stellar leadership team, design-to-delivery consumer experience, farm-to-table supply chain, and an extensive same-day delivery network, JV is poised to become the favourite destination for occasions and celebrations for Indians globally.

Occasion Retail is a Large Market Growing Rapidly

India is home to a large and growing occasion retail market. People engage in celebrating across the entire occasions spectrum. There are 24 national and 80 regional festivals, spread across 28 states! Every year there are several occasions that are marked by traditions unique to them: Rakhi for Raksha Bandhan, Diyas and Mithai for Diwali, Xmas tree, and plum cake for Christmas. In addition to festivals, a celebration is essential for occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, and weddings, as well as a slew of special days like Valentine's Day, Mother’s Day, and Father's Day.

A Snapshot of the Occasion Retail Market in India

India is home to a large and growing occasion retail market:

The Indian Occasions’ Online Retail Market Opportunity: Samvedanam Market Opportunity Report, November 2021

The Gifting and Occasions Market Landscape

IGP is one of the two scaled-up companies in India’s gifting and occasions market. Beyond these, customers can only purchase from regular brands or marketplaces, or hyperlocal brands. However, these options do not address the core needs of a customer: offering a personalized experience & specific time slot delivery. Gifting as a use case is unique. Not only are late deliveries unacceptable, but early deliveries are frowned upon too!

To cater to the larger Celebrations ecosystem, JV adopted an approach to building its proprietary technology platform, complementary brands offering curated products for different consumer segments, and captive supply chain network to handle the occasion peaks.

With its vertically integrated supply-chain, proprietary last-mile distribution and investments in technology & data, JV is well poised to become the go-to destination for occasions for Indians all over the world.

JV’s Playbook: Complimentary Brands (IGP and Interflora) powered by proprietary tech and captive supply chain

IGP

India loves to celebrate over 5 billion special moments (private and public occasions) every year. However, there was no single destination that offers the consumer an end-to-end solution for gifting and occasions. IGP solved this for the consumer by offering a personalized and curated catalog of gifts for occasions, festivals, and special days to become the most preferred gifting destination for Indians and NRIs. It started off as a destination for NRI customers who wanted to send gifts to India on special occasions and festivals. With the rapid digital adoption in India, in the last few years, the brand focused on gaining market share in India and catering to Indian consumers. Today, the Indian market contributes more than 80% of the revenue. IGP has become the destination of choice for festivals like Raksha Bandhan, Diwali, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Father's Day, and many more. From festival-led gifting to now being a part of everyday celebrations of the consumers, IGP has become a part of consumers’ daily lives for celebrating special moments.

Interflora

Originally established in 1923, Interflora is the world’s largest and most trusted flower gifting and décor brand with a network of floral designers across more than 100 countries. JV has an exclusive license for Interflora in India. Interflora India was launched in October 2017 and in a short span of five years has revolutionized the landscape for luxury gifting in India and redefined floral decor for weddings & events. Under Anuja Joshi's leadership, Interflora.in is already a trusted go-to brand for A-list celebrities. Most recently, Interflora catered to Bollywood celebrities like Karan Johar, Alia Bhatt & Ranbir Kapoor for their private occasions.

JV focuses on designing their product portfolio in-house and has invested heavily in tech and data capabilities to understand and serve customers better. They are the only online gifting player that offers products customized for specific festive seasons including Raksha Bandhan, Diwali and Christmas.

JV has built a full-stack model with complete control over supply chain partnering with 10,000 craftsmen, bakers, and local flower distributors. With warehouses in Mumbai, Lucknow, and Jaipur, that are supported by 40+ captive distribution centers, JV has coverage across 100 countries and 1,000+ Indian cities. This supply chain infrastructure enables complete control over user experience.

What We Love About JV

Ambitious founding team with a solid execution track record: Having known the founders for over 7 years, we have seen the journey from being a largely B2B and festival-heavy business to a largely B2C company. They have hired and nurtured a strong leadership team that can scale the business multifold. The team has built the business in a capital-efficient manner and focused on a full stack offering by taking a long-term view.

Opportunity to be the market leader in a fast-growing segment: Occasion retail is a fast-growing segment, and we expect the online penetration to increase substantially. JV is well placed to be the market leader with its differentiated business model.

Full stack model for complete control over user experience: The only scaled-up vertically integrated gifting platform in India. This model addresses the core consumer pain points in gifting: personalization, specific timeslot delivery, and consistent experience.

Strong growth with sound fundamental metrics: Extremely strong fundamental metrics; it is a working capital neutral business with healthy operating margins. This will make it extremely capital efficient and lucrative high RoCE (Return on Capital Employed) business at scale.

Data, tech, and product innovation capabilities to serve evolving customer preferences: Upfront investment in data and tech capabilities, in addition, to supply chain to create the necessary hard and soft infrastructure to cater to evolving customer needs and offer a consistent user experience.

We're excited to be on this journey with Tarun & Anuja as they build Join Ventures into a global leader in occasion retail.