After acquiring a controlling stake in Bewakoof Brands Pvt. Ltd, TMRW, a wholly-owned unit of Aditya Birla Fashion Retail Ltd, is going to invest Rs 200 crore to fuel the growth of the direct-to-consumer brand (D2C) brand.
“The terms for the growth capital are under discussions,” Bewakoof chief executive and co-founder Prabhkiran Singh told VCCircle in an interview.
TMRW acquired a majority stake in the company for Rs 200 crore by buying a secondary stake in the firm and giving an exit to all of its existing investors. The firm will own around 73-80% stake in Bewakoof, post transaction.
Founded in 2012 by Prabhkiran Singh, Bewakoof posted revenue of around Rs 162 crore, up from Rs 129 crore in the previous fiscal, as per Aditya Birla Fashion’s filing with the stock exchanges.
Bewakoof aims to touch Rs 1,500 crore in revenue over the next 5 years. With this partnership with TMRW, the company will be leveraging varied capabilities to help scale and grow its apparel business, it said in a release.
“With Bewakoof’s consumer base and our value-add in design, technology, brand building and supply chain, we aim to scale this brand to Rs 500 crore plus in the next two years. With Bewakoof and other D2C brands in our portfolio, we see the leading digital first brands of tomorrow disrupting and fueling e-commerce growth in India,” said Prashanth Aluru, chief executive and co-founder, TMRW.
TMRW, on Monday, announced investments in eight digital-first lifestyle brands with an aim to foray into casual wear, kids wear and western wear market. The other seven brands include Berrylush, Natilene, Juneberry, Nauti Nati, Nobero, Urbano, Veirdo.
Majority of the brands, however, are smaller than Bewakoof and have revenues in the range of Rs 15 to Rs 55 crore, Aditya Birla Fashion said in the filing.
Aditya Birla Fashion launched TMRW earlier this year 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.
With these eight brands on board, TMRW has achieved a revenue run-rate of over Rs 700 crore and is on a path to cross an annual revenue rate of Rs 1500 crore in the next 12 months, the filing noted.