Smytten, a product sampling and engagement platform for direct-to-consumer brands, has raised Rs 100 crore (around $15 million) in its latest funding round led by its existing investors Fireside Ventures and Roots Ventures.

The round also saw investment from Marico chairman Harsh Mariwala’s family office Sharrp Ventures, Einfochips founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Pratul Shroff family office--Waao Partners, Rockman Industries chairman Suman Kant Munjal family office’s Survam Partners and Sattva Group family office.

Smytten plans to utilise the funds to hire engineering talent and enhance its tech infrastructure with the help of AI & ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) for brand building and customer acquisition.

Founded in 2015 by ex-Googler Swagat Sarangi and ex-Unilever executive, Siddhartha Nangia, the online platform for product trials has consumer brand products from different categories like fragrances, and beauty & makeup, male grooming, food & beverages, and others. It offers product samples to consumers across these categories and asks for real-time feedback from users post sampling.

“We have seen significant growth from Tier-I and Tier-II cities…post the pandemic we are seeing significant users from the platform and we will continue to build our online platform,” said cofounder Nangia in an interaction with ET.

The startup has three streams of revenue, business-to-consumer product sample sales segment, brand commission on the sale of products and earns revenue through data sharing to brands based on product samples and consumer feedback analysis.

It clocks around 40% from the B2C (business-to-consumer) sampling segment, 20-25% from the brand commission segment, and the rest from the sampling analysis and data sharing segment. The company which is present in India will be venturing into global markets in the next 24 months.

“We have to have a global presence and it cannot be just India. In the next 24 months, we plan to launch our platform in the Middle East, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other Southeast Asian countries,” Nangia told ET.

The product trail platform is currently at an annualised revenue run rate (ARR) of Rs 140 crore and aims to achieve an ARR of Rs 500 crore by the end of FY23. It is a team of 300 people and is looking to hire 120 more people.

“We are looking to hire around 120-150 people, most of them will be for the senior management level…10 million is our current consumer base and we intend to acquire another 10 million by the end of this year,” Nangia said.

Smytten presently has around 920 brands on its platform and aims to launch another 700 brands in the next 12 months. It is also in discussion with about 12 international brands and will be launching the same in India in the coming months.