Vogue startup Virgio, co-founded by Amar Nagaram, former chief government of Myntra, has raised $37 million in a brand new financing spherical because the younger agency seems to be to construct “a world trend model” from the South Asian market.
Prosus Ventures, Alpha Wave and Accel co-led Virgio’s Sequence A funding, valuing the one-year-old startup at $161 million (post-money). (Virgio says it was based this 12 months, however hasn’t disclosed its seed funding spherical.)
Virgio says customers’ trend preferences are altering quickly and they aren’t happy with the incumbents’ choices. It’s making an attempt to unravel this by streamlining design, manufacturing and buying processes in “real-time,” providing Gen-Z and late millennials a platform the place they’ll uncover and buy the brand new fashionable apparels.
Virgio gives a wide-range of choice in informal, occasion and ethnic put on. Every week it provides new alternatives and clients obtain massive reductions and free transport.
The startup’s strategy has prompted some to attract comparisons between its mannequin with that of the behemoth Shein.
“Historically, the style business has operated on depth and low cost fashions,” stated Nagaram, founder and chief government of Virgio, in an announcement.
“On the core of Virgio is the tech basis, which is at all times listening to evolving tendencies on social media platforms and predicting the demand for every pattern. That is then fed into our agile and responsive provide chain to allow the trendiest, elegant and but reasonably priced line in close to real-time. Thus, Virgio is pioneering the check and scale technique, making runway trend accessible and reasonably priced for all customers, whereas eliminating extra stock for producers,” stated Nagaram, a Flipkart veteran who took over Myntra’s prime job in 2019 earlier than leaving the agency final 12 months.
The startup says its full-stack strategy is permitting it to condense the standard lead time of eight to 10 months to only one month. Its eponymous app has already amassed over 100,000 downloads, it stated. (On Sensor Tower, the app displays little or no metrics as it’s nonetheless too small.)
“There’s a massive underserved marketplace for branded attire in India at present. For instance, for girls, solely ~25% of trend is branded attire. The style business in India is thus at an inflection level, pushed by altering shopper preferences on account of social media’s affect, an necessary Gen-Z attribute to individualize as a type of expression, and the mixing of social commerce with social media platforms,” stated Ashutosh Sharma, Head of India Investments at Prosus Ventures, in an announcement.
“We’re assured in Virgio’s tech-first mannequin and consider the startup’s skilled founding crew is uniquely positioned to seize a big alternative in India’s trend business,” he added.
Scores of different entrepreneurs — together with Mukesh Bansal, Kunal Shah, Binny Bansal, Bhavesh Agarwal, Vidit Aatrey, Saif Ali Khan, Sriharsha Majety, and Sameer Nigam — additionally invested within the spherical.
