Deal Street: Women-Only Fashion Brand Raises Funds For Omnichannel Push
Your weekly dose of startup deals.
Three Indian startups raised about $37 million in angel, seed or venture capital funding across sectors such as home décor, fashion and artificial intelligence.
Bengaluru-based startups led the funding pack last week.
Online Décor Firm Design Cafe Raises Fresh Funding
Design Cafe, a Bengaluru-based online decor firm, raised $28.5 million (or about Rs 200 crore) in a fresh round of funding led by homegrown private equity firm WestBridge Capital.
Existing investor Fireside Ventures also participated in this round, the company said in a statement, adding that the investment will be used to expands its operations in six more regions including Mumbai, Delhi-NCR and Hyderabad.
The firm had last raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Fireside, Sprout Capital, angel investor Siddharth Pansari, and from Apurva Salarpuria, the founder of Salarpuria group of companies last year.
Founded in 2011, the firm offers decor solutions to homes ranging in size from 1,000-2,000 square feet. It offers end-to-end interior solutions with custom designs and personalisation. Besides an online platform, the company also owns an experience centre in Bengaluru, according to its website.
Online Fashion Platform For Women Raises $8.5 Million
High Street Essentials Pvt. Ltd., an online fashion brand for women that runs FabAlley and Indya, raised about $8.5 million (Rs 60 crore) in its fresh funding round from SAIF Partners
The round also includes a partial secondary share sale by Indian Angel Network, Shivani Poddar, co-founder of FabAlley, told BloombergQuint in an interview.
The Delhi NCR-based firm aims to deploy the funds towards focusing on product expansion, and also brand-building initiatives. “We also want to leverage technology in a way where we can create omnichannel experiences,” Poddar said, adding that they aim to increase their offline presence from 15 exclusive outlets and 120 shop-in-shops to about 50 stores and 300 shop-in-shops in the next 18 months. “We will also invest in new categories such as Athleisure and our plus size brand, Curve.”
Founded in June 2012, its first brand FabAlley is a women-only western wear label and identifies global fashion trends and converts them into affordable apparel, jewellery, accessories, shoes and bags. It launched Indya, an ethnic-fusion, offline-first brand in 2016, and is sold in about 15 exclusive brand outlets.
The firm said it turned profitable in FY18 with gross sales of Rs 80 crore and is on track to close FY19 at Rs 150 crore while remaining EBITDA positive.
Hindustan Petroleum backs AI startup Tranzmeo
Tranzmeo IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a startup that crates machine learning and artificial intelligence-based software products for enterprises and startups raised pre-seed funding from Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. for its AI-powered product “T-connect OneView”.
The Kochi-based startup will use the investment to accelerate research and development of its technology and product line-up. A part of investment will also go in business development and team expansion, according to a statement by IT industry group Nasscom. The startup, however, didn't disclose the amount of funding.
Tranzmeo, a part of Nasscom's 10,000 Startups accelerator programme, was founded in 2017. Its AI and deep learning-based product “T-connect OneView” is an anomaly forensics application. It streams through real-time machine data to learn machine behaviour and predict anomalies, and is also capable of classifying failure from the incoming data stream. It can even generate alerts and alarms to the concerned authority, the startup said in a statement.
Tranzmeo has launched the beta version of T-Connect, and at present analyses 508 kilometers of HPCL’s petroleum pipeline for anomaly detection and prediction.
“Tranzmeo is a uniquely positioned technology company with significant growth opportunity,” said Sanjay Kumar, chief, general business development at HPCL.
