TMRW, a wholly owned venture of Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd, has invested $18.6 million (Rs 155 crore) in casual fashion brand The Indian Garage Co (TIGC), thus expanding its portfolio in the casual wear segment.
This is the second such investment in a bootstrapped business in the consumer space on Wednesday. Earlier, footwear brand Inc.5 Shoes secured $10 million (Rs 83 crore) in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Carpediem Capital and saw participation from Param Capital among others.
With the partnership with TMRW, TIGC aims to target growth avenues across channels (including direct-to-consumer and offline/omnichannel) and expand its sub-brands and categories.
“With consumer understanding and product strength, TIGC has demonstrated product-market fit, scalability and consumer retention. We are confident in establishing TIGC as the leading casual wear brand across men and women,” said Prashanth Aluru, co-founder and chief executive officer, TMRW.
TIGC was founded by Anant Tanted in 2012 and is a digital-first fashion brand in the casual wear segment. The brand offers a range of apparel and footwear for men and women in casual wear and has recently expanded into women’s wear and plus-size segments with FreeHand and HardSoda brands, respectively.
TIGC claims to have clocked a revenue of Rs 300 crore in FY23 and claims to be earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) positive. The company, however, did not disclose the exact figures.
This is the first investment by TMRW in 2023. The “house-of-brands" venture in 2022 had invested in eight digital-first lifestyle brands to foray into casual wear, kids wear and western wear market. The brands include Berrylush, Natilene, Juneberry, Nauti Nati, Nobero, Urbano, Veirdo and most notably Bewakoof.
Aditya Birla Fashion launched TMRW in 2022 in line with the group’s strategy to launch and back new-age digital ventures. The venture is ABFRL’s attempt at creating a ‘House of Brands’ entity and actively investing in brands that are born online and draw a large part of their sales via the internet.
