Delhi-based Purple Panda Fashions Pvt. Ltd, which operates online-first lingerie and sleepwear retailer Clovia, has attracted two new investors in a fresh round of funding nearly two years after its Series A round.
The startup mopped up $4 million (about Rs 26 crore) from existing investor Ivycap Ventures Advisors Pvt. Ltd and new investors Singularity Ventures and Ravi Dhariwal, Clovia CEO Pankaj Vermani told VCCircle in an e-mailed statement.
Dhariwal is a co-founder of data analytics startup Sagacito Technologies Pvt. Ltd and a former CEO of Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd, the media house that runs The Economic Times and The Times of India.
Vermani said the startup hopes to learn from the experiences of new investors including Dhariwal, who has developed some of the biggest consumer businesses in the country.
Clovia will use the funds for marketing, product development and expanding sales channels.
Vermani also said the fundraising is a precursor to a Series B round. He didn’t elaborate.
The company had raised an undisclosed amount in its Series A round in June 2015. The funding came at a post-money valuation of $7.5 million, according to VCCEdge, the data research arm of VCCircle.
According to filings with the Registrar of Companies, Clovia has received the first tranche of the fresh capital infusion, amounting to Rs 4.5 crore, from IvyCap and Dhariwal. IvyCap infused Rs 3.5 crore while Dhariwal invested the remaining.
Ivycap invested from its second investment vehicle, IvyCap Ventures Trust Fund II, which has a target corpus of Rs 600 crore. Last month, VCCircle had reported that IvyCap was in the last leg of the fundraise for its second vehicle.
Clovia competes with the likes of lingerie e-tailers Zivame and PrettySecrets, apart from fashion e-commerce companies such as Myntra and horizontal online retailers like Amazon and Flipkart. Zivame is the most funded lingerie e-tailer and has raised funding from investors including Kalaari Capital and IDG Ventures.
Clovia, formerly known as Cloe, was founded by husband-wife duo Neha Kant and Vermani along with friends Suman Choudhry and Aditya Chaturvedi in 2013. It was renamed in June 2015.
The company sells its own brand of lingerie. Clovia ships about 250,000 units and claims to launch about 200 styles every month. The company also claims to have 1.5 million visitors a month on its website and app.
Clovia also sells its products at its shop-in-shop stores across 10 major airports in the country. The company has plans to extend its offline stores to 16.
In an earlier interaction with VCCircle, Vermani had said that he was looking at an omni-channel strategy for the long term. “The Indian lingerie market is a $3 billion opportunity and barely 1% of it is online,†Vermani had said, while speaking about the company’s growth potential.
According to data sourced from the Registrar of Companies by VCCEdge, Clovia’s net sales stood at Rs 30 crore in 2015-16 versus Rs 18.6 crore in the previous fiscal year. Its net loss widened to Rs 9.5 crore from Rs 1.7 crore during the period. Total expenditure increased to Rs 39.3 crore from Rs 20.3 crore.
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