Evenflow, founded by former Uber execs, buys four more brands

By Nikhil Patwardhan

  • 18 Jan 2022
Credit: Thinkstock

Evenflow Brands Tech Pvt Ltd, a Thrasio-style marketplace aggregator founded by former Uber executives Utsav Agarwal and Pulkit Chhabra, has invested in four more consumer brands in a bid to expand its portfolio and reach, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Thrasio is a US-based startup that rolls up popular brands sold on Amazon.com Inc's marketplace.  

Evenflow has bought stakes in two sports and fitness brands - Vifitkit and Yogarise. The company also bought stakes in Frenchware, a kitchen label and Cingaro, a gardening brand. Evenflow said that all the brands have an annual run rate between $500,000 to $2 million. As part of the deal, the founders of Frenchware and Cinagro will join Evenflow as consultants, the company said. With these acquisitions, Evenflow has a stake in seven brands till date.  

Vifitkit, is a three-year-old brand, which Evenflow claims to have about 8,000 ratings on Amazon's ‘Yoga Mat’ vertical, while Cinagro, founded in 2017 in Hyderabad, is one of the highest-rated brands in the gardening category, Evenflow said. It also said that it will help develop Yogarise and Frenchware into niche brands.

“We are extremely cautious with the number of brands we acquire. The idea is to solve all operational bottlenecks and give each brand enough focus on its branding, launching new selections, formulating platform level strategies independently, for it to thrive,” said Pulkit Chhabra, Evenflow's Co-founder and Vice President, Acquisitions.

Evenflow has acquired all these brands at an upfront amount basis EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation), multiple valuations and performance earnouts spread over three years. The company, in 2021, had acquired Xtrim, a sports and fitness accessories brand, BabyPro, a baby-care brand and Rusabl, an online daily sustainables’ brand.

The company also said that it focuses more on acquiring startups at EBITDA multiples and not at revenue multiples. Evenflow said that it has been acquiring third-party e-commerce sellers with attractive product portfolios, and aims to establish them as solid brands across multiple categories in e-commerce.    

"We are looking to triple the growth for each of these brands in the next six months. We took our time to build our playbooks and formulate our expansion plans. At present, all four brands are linked with Amazon only, but we are in the process of onboarding them on other marketplaces including Flipkart, Meesho and Jiomart," said Utsav Agarwal, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Evenflow.