Lifestyle brand Mayfair has raised $3.2 million (nearly Rs 22 crore) in its seed round of funding from homegrown venture capital firm Nexus Venture Partners and Chinese alternative asset management firm CDH Investments.
The Gurugram-based firm will use the money to ramp up procurement and operations and to expand the team.
“Unlike other traditional fashion brands, Mayfair uses big data to translate user demand along with lifestyle trend into actionable signals, so our suppliers are able to turn them into a unique design with good quality in a short turnaround time,” said Chi Xue, co-founder at Mayfair.
The company was launched in 2018 October by Xue, a former Google executive, and Eddie Deng, director at Alibaba.
Mayfair offers affordable fashion including clothing, accessories and home and living products. The firm captures customer demand trends using data science and an artificial intelligence technology platform.
“We were very impressed that the founders were able to build an exceptional team across dimensions: data, tech, design, operations and supply chain,” said Pratik Poddar, vice president at Nexus Venture Partners.
Deals in the space
Several clothing brands have attracted interest not only from venture capital but also private equity investors.
In February this year, homegrown private equity firm ChrysCapital infused additional capital and increased its stake in an apparel brand.
Around the same time, Myntra’s co-founder Raveen Sastry and PremjiInvest partners Rahul Garg and Atul Gupta invested Rs 2 crore (around $285,000) in apparel brand Turms.
In May last year, Singapore-based private equity firm L Catterton Asia agreed to buy a 10% stake in Future Lifestyle Fashions Ltd.
Other apparel brands are TCNS Clothing Co Pvt. Ltd, which owns the 'W' brand of clothing for women, Biba Apparels and House of Anita Dongre Ltd (formerly AND Designs).
TCNS Clothing had debuted on the stock markets in July last year and counts US-based private equity firm TA Associates as an investor.
PE firms Warburg Pincus and Faering Capital have invested in Biba Apparels while US-based General Atlantic has backed House of Anita Dongre Ltd previously.
