Companies

Bewakoof.com hopes to raise ₹100 crore to fund growth

Abhishek Law Kolkata | Updated on January 13, 2021 Published on January 13, 2021

“FY21 and FY22 are years where we double down on the tech investments,” says Prabhkiran Singh, Co-founder

As post pandemic normalcy returns, online apparel retailer Bewakoof.com is banking on rising popularity of e-commerce and an increased product portfolio – that includes ethnic wear and street wear – to remain EBITDA positive.

It is also eyeing a new round of fund-raise of ₹100 crore as it looks at increasing investments in technology, new products and branding.

Profitable growth

According to Prabhkiran Singh, Co-founder, Bewakoof.com, the company is eyeing close to a turnover of ₹140-150 crore, a decrease of 30-33 per cent over last fiscal’s ₹210 crore. Nearly four months of business loss, due the lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic and other local restrictions, is difficult to recover.

T-shirts (quirky prints and merchandising) and athleisure offerings like joggers and shorts continue to be amongst its fastest moving items. Sales have resumed at pre-Covid levels from October-December period onwards.

However, the company, he says, will continue to remain profitable – earnings before interest, depreciation, tax and amortisation positive – during the fiscal.

“We re-started, post unlocking, with masks and branched out to include PPEs, sanitisers and hand-wash. July onwards we got the supply chain back on track and sales started picking up,” he told BusinessLine. A normal 45-day inventory line – against an industry average of 60 days – had gone dry post the closures and absence of stocks.

According to Singh,profits are being ploughed back as investments in technology and talent. “FY21 and FY22 are years where we double down on the tech investments. That’s a learning from the pandemic,” he said, adding:“In two years, we should report net profits”.

The nearly 9-year-old start-up has seen profitable growth for three years between FY17 and FY19. It reported losses in FY20.

Fund raise

The online retailer has already seen a funding of ₹80 crore from Bahrain’s alternative asset manager, Investcorp. Before this, it raised seed funds from Snapdeal founders (Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal) and Sixth Sense Ventures (Nikhil Vora).

This time, the plan is to raise ₹100 crore and discussions are about to begin post end of FY21, Singh said.

“Apart from tech, we are ramping up on operations and the offerings portfolio as our long term expansion plan,” he said.

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Published on January 13, 2021
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