10club, e-commerce aggregators, has announced its second acquisition of a top selling sports and fitness equipment brand, Skudgear.

Raviteja Visakoti, an IIM Kashipur Alumnus, along with his brother Rithish Visakoti, founded and grew Skudgear that focuses on sports and fitness category and Rapidotzz, which specialises in smart watch accessories.

Visakoti longed to be financially independent since he was a student at IIM Kashipur, and that was what largely drove him to find ways to build a financially sustainable business. His brother and he had worked in corporate jobs, but both decided that it was not a path they wanted to pursue. They saved a small amount of money to order their first shipment of products, with the intent to sell them on Amazon. They worked tirelessly to identify the right product mix with reliable suppliers and soon, their products were garnering a good number of positive reviews on the platform.

They started operations from a single bedroom flat in Hyderabad with just 1 employee. Four years later, they had built a business with strong margins and a highly rated portfolio of products; several of them being bestsellers on marketplaces.

Skudgear currently operates out of a 2,500 sq. ft. warehouse with 8 employees and has listed 400 SKUs on Amazon, which brings in the largest portion of sales for the company. Raviteja also started Beclina, a small collection of women’s handbags. He now dreams of building his venture into a $100 million brand but is encumbered by a lack of capital to expand his portfolio, the team to scale operations, and often supply chain difficulties.

10club stepped in at this juncture to acquire his business, with the aim to partner with him and grow his business multifold. 10club acquires, operates and grows digitally native businesses to create a portfolio of brands with the aim of growing them exponentially and empowering them to become market leaders in their respective industries.

Earlier this year, 10club raised a seed fund of $40 million, the largest seed fund round in India with participation from Fireside, HeyDay, PDS International, Class 5 Global, Secocha Ventures and founders of hardware startup boat being the other investors.

Deepak Nair, Co-Founder & COO at 10club said, “We are extremely excited to have Ravi and his team to anchor this category along with the other acquisitions we have planned in the coming months.”

Raviteja Visakoti, Co-Founder of Skudgear said, “Deepak and Bhavna have built a great team and we are eager to explore the possibilities that the future holds for us in partnership with the 10club team.”

Raviteja will join the 10club team full time as an Entrepreneur in Residence. 10club will focus its energies on building the brand alongside him, with the aim of making it a category leader and a valuable addition to its portfolio of brands.

Published on: Thursday, September 30, 2021, 11:38 AM IST