Naiyya Saggi, An MBA graduate from Harvard Business School, is the Co-founder of BabyChakra, an online platform that connects parents to services and products to make parenting a less tedious affair.
It is India’s largest and most loved platform to discover the right maternity and childcare. It was established in the year 2015. Today, their services cover everything from infertility experts, nutritionists, physiotherapists, baby products to playschools. It has over 17,000 service providers listed across three cities- Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi.
A former rainmaker with McKinsey, Naiyya used her learnings and business acumen in the field of maternal and child health to start her venture.
While she had the business skills, she lacked user-research and hence, wanted to first understand the user problems and pain points that she could address with her product. For her research, she met around 600 mothers over coffee. She learnt about the issues they faced and the products they used for themselves or their baby. Her research culminated in the launch of a personalized, mobile first app and web platform for mothers and fathers.
Funding
The start-up has raised three rounds of funding in total with the latest one from a group of senior corporate leaders including Equanimity Ventures Fund, backed by Mark Mobius and Rajesh Sehgal; Facebook director Anand Chandrasekaran; OYO chief strategy officer and ex-Lightspeed Ventures investor Maninder Gulati; and Gideon Marks, a Silicon Valley tech investor credited with three NASDAQ public offerings. Existing investors Arihant Patni, Artha India Ventures, and Bharat Rawla were also a part of this funding round.
The platform doesn’t simply provide services. It lets to-be parents and young parents connect with each other to discuss issues and solutions. During pregnancy, an expecting mother undergoes a lot of physical and emotional change. In such a time, community support matters. BabyChakra plays a huge role in providing much-needed support as well as educating individuals about baby-care and parenting.
According to industry analysts and insiders, the Indian parenting sector isn’t an easy market to crack. Around 90% of the market is locked up with old-world offline baby product retailers.
However, it has seen massive growth in the last couple of years. Parents no longer want to lean only on the circle of their parents, in-laws and local paediatricians for advice on child rearing. Joint families are giving way to nuclear ones and the rise in disposable incomes, as well as double income households, have led to parents devoting more money to child-rearing. The growing internet penetration across the country has led to awareness among parents (even in remote areas) about proper child-care. More parents are now willing to use premium quality products, services and specialists for their babies. In a market that was reliant on old networks, this shift is clearly visible from the growing number of users on BabyChakra platform.
The idea culminated when a lot of her friends became parents. She also noticed multiple facebook groups that were strewn with questions ranging from parenting to paediatrics. Armed with an MBA from Harvard Business School and a law degree from NLS, this young lady is determined to dent the $20 billion maternity-child market. YourStory caught up with Naiyya as she shares her insight about BabyChakra.
Currently focused on the $20 B maternity-child market, BabyChakra helps the 30 million mums (and dads) online make decisions on doctors, hospitals, cord blood banks, playschools, activities, events, products etc. Strong social integration, an evolving tech platform and a focus on reviews help parents make decisions easier.
For the two lakh+ local services in this space, BabyChakra is a unique product that aggregates them and connects them to their specific target audience.
Story Behind The Idea And Name
On asking Naiyya Saggi, the motivation behind Baby Chakra venture, her reply was that “A lot of our friends were becoming parents and parenting was a whole new world, very different from the one they knew. Nothing had prepared them for the experience especially since most young couples live in nuclear families and are geographically and aspirationally mobile.We are the first one-stop platform for all the information you need on services and shops in your locality for maternity and child care.”
The maternity-young child space is US $20 B but incredibly disaggregated and unregulated. Through a high level of social integration, young parents use us to discover services they need (e.g. doctors, playschools, and daycares etc.) or don’t even realize they need but once discovered use them (e.g. lactation help, nutritionists, family photographers, and toy libraries etc.) in their locality. The parent can read reviews, connect with the reviewer on our platform and also with our panel of experts.
Initially, before launching the product, the company’s co-founder talked to 600 mothers and 200 services to map their need. At present , the product itself is in Beta and is a MVP, in the last three months since the site launch, the company has seen incredible traction. The company has been in strategic partnerships with some major brands, services and large format retailers that indicate their belief in product like theirs.
Two other examples of need: the day the company moved to their hosting server, three days before even officially announcing the launch, the company had 90 sign-ups on our site. It meant parents were tracking our URL closely and waiting to use their product! Moreover, it’s been great to note that while the company target mothers, they have had an equal male population on their site so far!
Services use us to connect with the moving target of parents and sell their service to them. For parents, needs keep changing rapidly as the child grows. For services to connect with a moving audience is often an expensive proposition. Services based on trust (e.g. doctors, playschools, and day cares etc.) are limited by word of mouth references. Baby Chakra is the one platform that connects and introduces parents to local services relevant to them.
There are players that operate in this target demographic in the US, e.g. Urban Sitter, Weespring, and Red Tricycle etc. In India, there are a few sites that list services in the older children’s space. However, Baby Chakra is unique in being highly socially integrated and a quality parenting platform and not just a listings site. We are positioned very differently and you will see how in the coming months.
The start-up is in fundraising talks with angel investors in India and the US. They are basically focusing on partnering with investors who share their vision and passion for the space and product. They have been fortunate to connect with some great investors.
Separately, the company has been fortunate to be provided co-working space by the Digital Media Zone (an Accelerator program sponsored by the Bombay Stock Exchange and Ryerson University). The office and incredible peer-set is a step above our earlier home-office set-up.
