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Fashion startup Virgio, co-founded by Amar Nagaram, former Myntra chief executive, has raised $37 million in a fresh round of funding as the young firm seeks to build “a global fashion brand” from the South Asian market.
Prosus Ventures, Alpha Wave and Accel co-led Virgio’s Series A funding, valuing the year-old startup at $161 million (post-money). (Virgio says it was founded this year, but has not disclosed its seed funding round.)
Virgio says that consumers’ fashion preferences are changing rapidly and they are not satisfied with the current operators’ offerings. It is trying to solve this by streamlining the design, production and buying processes in “real time”, giving Gen-Z and late millennials a platform where they can discover and buy the latest fashions.
Virgio offers a wide range of choices in casual, party and ethnic wear. Every week adds new selections and customers get big discounts and free shipping.
The startup’s approach has prompted some to draw comparisons between its model and that of giant Shein.
“Traditionally, the fashion industry has operated on deep, discount models,” Nagaram, Virgio’s founder and chief executive, said in a statement.
“At the core of Virgio is the foundation of technology, which is always listening to emerging trends on social media platforms and predicts demand for each trend. This is then fed into our agile and responsive supply chain to enable the most fashionable, stylish and yet affordable line in near real time. Virgio is thus pioneering a test-and-scale approach, making runway fashion accessible and affordable to all consumers, while eliminating excess inventory for manufacturers,” said Nagaram, a Flipkart veteran who took over as the Myntra chief. in 2019 before leaving the firm last year.
The startup says its end-to-end approach is allowing it to condense its typical eight-to-ten-month lead time to just one month. His app of the same name has already amassed over 100,000 downloads, he said. (On Sensor Tower, the app reflects very few metrics since it’s still very small.)
“There is a huge unserved market for branded apparel in India at present. For example, for women, only ~25% of fashion is branded clothing. The fashion industry in India is thus at an inflection point, driven by changing consumer preferences as a result of the influence of social media, an important characteristic of Gen-Z to individualize as a form of expression and the integration of social commerce with social media platforms. Ashutosh Sharma, India Head of Investments at Prosus Ventures, said in a statement.
“We are confident in Virgio’s technology-first model and believe that the startup’s expert founding team is uniquely positioned to capture a huge opportunity in the fashion industry in India,” he added.
Many other entrepreneurs – including Mukesh Bansal, Kunal Shah, Binny Bansal, Bhavesh Agarwal, Vidit Aatrey, Saif Ali Khan, Sriharsha Majety and Sameer Nigam – also invested in the round.
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