Geniemode, which was founded in May 2021, helps buyers and
manufacturers of furniture, home décor, textiles, garments, and accessories to
streamline and regulate the end-to-end supply chain, from design to delivery.
“Difficulty in
finding the right supplier, inadequate supply chain infrastructure, high levels
of intermediaries, and lack of supply chain visibility are a few challenges
faced by buyers while sourcing from India and other Southeast Asian (SEA)
countries. However, despite these challenges, we believe India has the
potential to build the best supply chain across the world in the fashion and
home industry,” says Amit, CEO and Co-founder of Gurugram-headquartered
Geniemode in a conversation with YourStory.
Founded in May 2021, Geniemode, the B2B
(business-to-business) cross-border tech startup for lifestyle goods, is
working towards bringing transparency and meritocracy into the system, and
helping buyers establish effective sourcing capabilities.
“The process of evaluating suppliers, and establishing and
managing supply chain connections is more complex than it appears. With
Geniemode, buyers need not worry about these aspects. Our team of experts does
supplier assessment, quality assurance, final qualification, and ongoing
quality management. We provide complete solutions–from design to delivery–to
our buyers,” he adds.
Geniemode claims to be a one-stop sourcing and supply chain
solution startup with an innovative technology-based platform for retailers and
suppliers dealing in home decor, textile, furniture, apparel, and accessories
categories.
“We are building an extensive online solution for global
buyers–ranging from mom and pop stores to global giant retailers. We’ve created
a suite of digital solutions to automate the entire supply chain which brings
speed, transparency, innovation, and profitability. Communication features
built into the system allow buyers to quickly respond to vendors’ questions and
raise concerns in real-time so that there’s no information asymmetry. It saves
a lot of time and brings efficiency,” says Co-founder Tanuj.
Currently, Geniemode is operating in India, Bangladesh,
Barcelona, the UK, and New York.
The USP
As per Tanuj, “What separates us is that we are trying to
transform the global sourcing for small and medium brick and mortar stores by
democratising technology. We are empowering them by providing features,
insights, and supplier networks that only big brands could afford. We are
building a powerful and transparent supply chain within everyone’s reach.”
“We are also playing with fresh designs with new capsule
collections every two months which will be available at an affordable cost.
Also, once buyers are onboarded on our platform, they have an option to place
repeat orders with clear visibility of inventory and timelines along with new
collections that will be launched,” he adds.
Geniemode competes with the likes of Li & Fung.
“Operating in the market for a long time, our competitors have secured
capacities from good factories, which pose a challenge. We are trying to rope
in new factories to compete by providing financial support to manufacturers to
help them scale their production capabilities and execute big orders on time,”
he adds.
The team
Amit and Tanuj met while working in Limeroad. They often
discussed the sourcing loopholes and how these can be tackled by putting the
right technology in place. Finally, they decided to build something to solve
the problems that suppliers and buyers face, and started Geniemode.
The startup currently has a total team of 170+ people.
Funding and monetisation
So far, Geniemode has raised $37.5 million from Tiger Global
and Info Edge India, among others. Its month-on-month GMV (Gross Merchandise
Value) growth has been over 20 percent in the last 14 months.
The company’s angel investors include Zomato’s founder
Deepinder Goyal, CRED’s Kunal Shah, Apache Cassandra’s Prashant Malik, and
EthAum Venture’s Pankaj Gupta.
“Currently, we have an annualised run rate of over $50
million. The company is always working on a profitable contribution margin. We
plan to utilise these profits towards scaling the business. This is our key
focus right now,” Amit tells.
“We started our operation in May 2021 with an investment of
$200,000 from angel investors. We make margins on the products sold to buyers.
We keep it variable based on the efforts and services we are providing,” he
adds.
The way ahead
According to Allied Market Research, the global home decor
market was valued at $616.6 billion in 2019, and is estimated to reach $838.6
billion by 2027, registering a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 3.9
percent from 2020 to 2027.
Geniemode has clients including Next Plc, Peacocks, Inditex,
Liverpool, Ashley Furniture, Mango etc across 16 countries. So far, it has
onboarded over 70 buyers and 200 suppliers on its portal.
“We have already delivered over two million quantities, and
have bookings of over three million in the pipe,” Tanuj says.
“We’ve segmented our target group into five groups: medium,
with an annual order volume of $1- $20 million; large, with an annual order
volume of $20 million; importers that have large volumes with low margins;
online retailers that are equivalent to large retailers in terms of value; and
mom and pop stores–retail stores in the US. We’ve separate teams to onboard
these buyers,” he states.
In terms of expansion, Geniemode is focusing on increasing
its warehouse footprints to better serve its clients. Its revenue goal is to
achieve an order value of $200 million by 2023.
Geniemode competes with
the likes of GlobalFair, backed by Kunal Shah, Razorpay’s Harshil Mathur, and
others. Its investor Info Edge also backed another B2B ecommerce startup called
Bijnis which focuses on unorganised markets and allows retailers to purchase
directly from the source. Courtesy: https://yourstory.com/2022/06/b2b-cross-border-tech-startup-geniemode-streamlining-supply-chain/amp
