Alia Bhatt's Fashion Startup StyleCracker gets $2 Mn from AMJ Ventures

Business LineOnline personalized styling platform, StyleCracker, which backed by Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt, has raised $2 million from US-based investor AMJ Ventures, reported media outlets including Business Line.

Founded in 2013, by Dhimaan Shah and Archana Walavalkar, StyleCracker is an online personal styling platform comprising of a team of expert stylists who personally curate looks based on its users' preferences and budget. The user needs to visit the website, fill out a style quiz and place the order. In addition to personal styling, the fashion tech startup also provides styling services for teams through its corporate styling programs.

StyleCracker intends to use the freshly raised funds to build a strong pan-India presence and move even closer to being the stylist to every Indian.

Alia Bhatt has bought a stake in StyleCracker this year.

(Left-Right) - Dhimaan Shah, Alia Bhatt and
Archana Walavalkar

In a media statement, StyleCracker Co-Founder and Managing Director, Dhimaan Shah, said, "StyleCracker has grown rapidly since inception, at about 150% per annum, and is on track to grow the business at over 250 per cent this financial year, after its funding from AMJ Ventures."

Commenting on the investment, Anish Patel, Founding Partner at AMJ Ventures said, “StyleCracker has shown great potential. The business has successfully maintained a low exchange and return rate which is nearly 1/3rd of what ecommerce sites have."

AMJ Ventures is a family fund that invests in early stage consumer and consumer-tech companies. StyleCracker is third and largest investment of AMJ in India since its India launch earlier this year. Earlier, AMJ has invested in Avail Finance, a Bangalore-based loan financing service and Propelled, a lender for higher education courses.

Recent Fundraise by Fashion-based Tech Startups

Last month, Stage3, a fashion-rental and styling platform, raised $2 million in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Blume Ventures. Stage3 has successfully established itself as the leading purveyor of design-led glam wear for men and women in the affordable luxury category.

In August, Fashion focused, O2O designer brands aggregator startup and fashion discovery platform, GetNatty, had raised an undisclosed sum as a part of its seed round led by Abhay Kumar - CMD of Grihapravesh Buildteck, Binod Choubey, Firoze Sethna and Parth Patel, all of whom are entrepreneurs turned investors. GetNatty also offers an AI enabled personal stylist.

In the same month, India's Minister for Textiles Smriti Zubin Irani has launched Project SU.RE -- a project which aims to move towards sustainable fashion that contributes to a clean environment.

Fashion Discovery Platform GetNatty Raises Seed Funding; Appoints Sandeep Bhagava on the Advisory Board

Fashion focused, O2O designer brands aggregator startup and fashion discovery platform with AI enabled personal stylist, GetNatty has raised an undisclosed sum as a part of its seed round, that was led by Abhay Kumar - CMD of Grihapravesh Buildteck, Binod Choubey, Firoze Sethna and Parth Patel, all of whom are entrepreneurs turned investors.

The company has appointed media and entertainment industry veteran Sandeep Bhargava on the board of advisors who is credited to launch the motion picture business of the Network 18 group in India, and within a year he had listed the company on the AIM exchange in London and raised a film fund of USD 110 Million.

“GetNatty is committed to building a unique and scalable business in the fashion space and could very well become the next Unicorn that is designed in India and made for the world” - Sandeep Bhargava 

“One of the main reasons for investing in GetNatty is because of the strong work ethics, honesty and sincerity of its founders and their ability to pull talented people from diverse backgrounds to work towards a shared vision” - Abhay Kumar, Lead Investor 

The proceeds from the round of funding will be used by the two year old company to build out the technology arm of the business and bring in new revenue channel formats that will cater to the country's burgeoning fashion design ecosystem.

“We will continue to experiment and bring in new revenue formats, be it in the form of new business channels, fashion events, geographies and product launches which will add real value to the fashion community in India” - Kaizad Hansotia, Founder & CEO of GetNatty 

[caption id="attachment_133004" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Kaizad Hansotia[/caption]

Founded on 8th March 2016, GetNatty aggregates talented fashion designers under one roof and provides an easy access to the end user to discover and shop these unique styles through an AI powered customer experience that is convenient, reliable and seamless both online and online to offline. Further, we intend to provide predictive analytics, demand planning and business intelligence tools to our community of designers to help them scale up.

“Essentially our aim is to create a robust online and offline platform and a solid infrastructure to enable designers and SME fashion entrepreneurs to acquire more customers, build scale and go global” - Bheshaj Joshi, Co-Founder & COO of GetNatty 

Apart from its online marketplace GetNatty.com, the startup also takes its designers to participate in multiple exhibitions every month in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities to acquire customers and create brand recall value. With over 50+ exhibitions participated till date, GetNatty has successfully onboarded over 200+ designers from 20+ cities of India and is on track to acquire over 1000+ designers and 100k+ users over the course of the next 6-12 months and will be coming up with its own 1 day Experiential Pop-up Show in Mumbai this November at Blue Sea Banquets, in Worli.

Fashion discovery Startup Findow Receives Funding from Raj Singh Bhandal, Director, Next Media Works

Founded by Zarine Ahmad Bajaj and Himanshu Kumar, Findow, a fashion discovery application that launched in July 2016 announced that it has received an undisclosed amount of seed funding from investor Raj Singh Bhandal, Director at Next Media Works.

In a unique format, Findow helps shoppers across the country discover fashion by introducing them to brands, boutiques, retailers, designers and stylists. The company also assists patron brands with the sale of their pieces by giving shoppers a chance to purchase their products through the application, thereby acting as a virtual boutique as well.

Findow piloted its application through Android, iOS and their website and since then has received a whopping 2000 plus downloads from shoppers across Mumbai and Delhi. The startup has also received traction from the retailing communities spanning premium, high-street and luxury brands that include Gucci, Dior, Hermes, Ritu kumar, Manish Arora, Anju Modi and Rahul Mishra to name a few.

Mr. Raj Singh Bhandal, Director, Next Media Works says, “I have chosen to invest in Findow, as it is building a unique shopping experience for consumers. Targeting a relatively untapped market gap, Findow is connecting consumers to offline fashion brands around them by leveraging the exciting personalization capabilities of the mobile device. The potential market size for a venture like Findow is big. There is growing demand across the social strata for fashion with consumers becoming more aware and informed of brands from around the world.”

The amount that has been infused in the brand will be utilized to grow the brand in metros and key tier two cities where luxury shopping and fashion is seen to be growing at a faster pace. This fund will also be used to elevate Findow’s marketing and branding exercises so as to reach a wider audience.

To add to this, Zarine Bajaj, Co-Founder, Findow says, “We want to ensure that if a user wants to interact with a brand in any way, Findow is the only app they will ever have to use - be it deciding where to go, what to shop, getting Store information , easy purchases, discovering new brands.”

Himanshu Kumar, Co-Founder, Findow says, “As the use of fashion apps increases by the day, we will use the funds further to build our product further to help connect fashion brands and consumers; this in turn helps create great shopping experiences for our users. Furthermore, we are aiming to get more funding so as to better Findow’s technological offerings.”