Can FirstCry Hold Investor Attention In A Quick Commerce World?

FirstCry shares have fallen nearly 70% from their peak as quick commerce eats into this traditional strengths

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At least seven times during FirstCry’s March-quarter earnings call, the company returned to a familiar theme: rationalisation. 

Competition, the management suggested, was behaving irrationally. Discounting in key categories was irrational. Pricing pressures were irrational. The implication was that the current environment was an aberration, one that would eventually correct itself.

Public markets, however, appear far less patient. Since listing in August 2024, shares of Brainbees Solutions, FirstCry’s parent company, have fallen nearly 70% from their peak, wiping out more than half of the company’s market value. Today, Brainbees is worth roughly ₹11,318 Cr.

What’s striking is that the selloff has unfolded even as the underlying business continues to expand. Revenue rose 12% year-on-year to ₹8,548 Cr in FY26, while adjusted EBITDA grew 24% to ₹486 Cr. Losses narrowed from ₹265 Cr to ₹204 Cr, annual GMV crossed ₹11,600 Cr, and existing customers contributed nearly ₹8,930 Cr of that total. 

For much of the last decade, FirstCry represented one of India’s clearest specialist ecommerce success stories. While horizontal marketplaces chased scale across dozens of categories, FirstCry focused on a single consumer: parents. It built an ecosystem around that relationship, selling everything from diapers and feeding products to toys, apparel and baby gear. Along the way, it developed private labels, expanded its offline footprint, forged partnerships with hospitals and maternity clinics, and cultivated a large parenting community.

Today, FirstCry counts more than 11 Mn annual transacting customers, 193 Mn app downloads, 1,189 stores and over 13,500 hospital and maternity-clinic partnerships.

The moat seemed obvious. A first-time parent navigating questions of safety, quality and product discovery was more likely to trust a........

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