Comments
Five-year-old fashion and lifestyle portal Bewakoof.com is making another attempt to enter the brick & mortar retail space by raising a new round of $4-5 million from a new set of investors.
Backed by the founders of Snapdeal, this would be Bewakoof’s second stint at trying to enter the offline retail segment, having done a pilot through distributors in 2014.
To begin with, it will set up a couple of flagship stores in Mumbai before venturing into other cities.
Prabhkiran Singh, Co-Founder, Bewakoof, told Businessline , “About two years ago we did a pilot with about 150 to 200 boutique outlets but after facing payment issues, we closed down the operations and decided to focus on the online segment. But now since our online business is doing well, we want to slowly get back to giving our consumers the brand experience through flagship stores which would measure between 2,000 to 3,000 sq ft.’’
Having built adequate brand equity for its private label under Bewakoof (meaning foolish in Hindi), the Mumbai-based start-up now wants to sell its brand across market places of all the big players like Amazon and Flipkart.
“Since we design and manufacture our private label of Bewakoof , we have managed healthy margins and have been profitable. Having raised angel funding, we are now looking forward to PE and VC funds to raise capital and slowly make an entry into brick and mortar retail with our flagship stores,’’ he added.
In fact the last time, Bewakoof got funded was almost two years ago with investments from the founders of Snapdeal. “It has been two years since we had our round of investments. But now we are seeking funds of a bigger amount from private equity players would also raise debt from banks of about ₹6 crore. We believe the bubble of start ups is not exactly bursting but shrinking but we are confident of raising money,’’ he added.
Increasing portfolio Having raised ₹4 crore in equity from angel investors such as Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal along with Nikhil Vora, founder of Sixth Sense Ventures, Bewakoof has been steadily increasing its portfolio from apparel to phone and mobile covers. It now intends tapping into the kids wear segment under the Bewakoof brand.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.