Dear reader,
Today’s article is an interview with Bela Gupta.
Bela is the co-founder of edamama, a mother and baby care company in the Philippines. edamama has raised $30mn since its inception in 2020. They’ve developed a community of over 2 million parents in the Philippines. Starting as an online e-commerce platform, edamama has expanded to offline stores and launched bean, a baby care brand.
Before we dive in, we'd like to extend a special welcome to our new Indian School of Business readers. edamama is the story of an Indian MBA student (Bela attended Stanford GSB) who founded a successful startup in Asia. You might relate to her in multiple ways.
In this article, we speak about:
- Why did baby and mother care represent a specialized e-commerce opportunity?
- When should a successful e-commerce platform expand to physical stores and launch an actual product?
- How to scale an e-commerce platform in a country with a strong mall culture?
- What verticals did edamama expand into, to grow its TAM and customer LTV?
- Baby care has a natural endpoint. How does edamama retain mothers after motherhood?
- How is baby care product discovery changing?
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Biography:
Bela Gupta is the founder and CEO of edamama, a mother care company in the Philippines. Founded in 2020 as an online store, edamama has since expanded into physical retail and launched its own brand, bean. The company has raised $30 million and serves over 2 million parents.
edamama (incorporated in 2019) is not to be confused with Ed-a-mamma, a children’s fashion company based in India.
Before founding edamama in 2020, Bela was the founder and CEO of AdSpark Philippines, a digital marketing technology company. She previously served as the co-founder and COO of Groupon Thailand, where she led the launch and operations of the company’s social e-commerce platform in the country.
You worked in e-commerce, digital marketing, and venture. How did those experiences shape edamama?
I moved to the Philippines at a time when media budgets were shifting to digital, and the way people consumed information and discovered brands was rapidly changing. On the consumer side, in a matriarchal society like the Philippines, advertisers consistently wanted to target mothers because they were seen as a gateway to the entire family.
These insights crystallized when I became a mother myself. This combination of professional insights and personal experience made me realize how compelling the market could be.
What gap in the Philippine mother care/baby care market led you to start edamama?