Innovative Lifestyle Technology Pvt. Ltd, which operates footwear direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand Yoho, on Wednesday announced that it has raised Rs 20 crore in a Series A round of funding led by existing investors Softbank Vision Fund’s chief executive Rajeev Mishra, Rukam Capital, and Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma. Other undisclosed investors also participated in the round.
Delhi-based Yoho will use the fresh proceeds to create capabilities for new product propositions and sustainable manufacturing standards, the company said in a release.
Founded in 2021 by Ahmad Hushsham and Prateek Singhal, Yoho offers an affordable range of footwear, which it says are comfortable and stylish. The company aims to use artificial intelligence-powered solutions in its manufacturing.
“The funding has come at a crucial time and will help us to invest in new technology to build new product propositions and build scale,” said Hushsham, founder, Yoho.
Yoho claims that it had already patented designs with some leading universities in footwear. The company aims to capture a pie of the Indian footwear market estimated to be at $13.49 billion, and the total revenue is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 12.83%, as per a recent report by Maximise Market Research.
To date, the one-and-a-half-year-old D2C brand has already sold more than 1 lakh pairs of footwear after coming out of stealth mode four months back, with just three products - Bubbles, Waves, and Breeze, the company said.
Yoho sells footwear for both men and women across e-commerce platforms. Before launching the product lines, Yoho created almost 700 prototypes before settling for the right product line, the company said.
In 2021, Yoho raised its seed funding round from Rukam Capital, Softbank’s Misra, Sequoia Sprouts, Paytm’s Sharma, Cred founder Kunal Shah, Zomato and Shyft cofounder Pankaj Chaddah, Tata 1mg’s cofounder Gaurav Agarwal, and Tinder’s general manager-Southeast Asia, Taru Kapoor, among other investors.
“India's digitally native segment has the potential to take the global market by storm at the back of aggressive consumer-centric product innovation strategy and this is a space that we have been extremely passionate about, said Archana Jahagirdar, Managing Partner, Rukam Capital.