Fashion startup Virgio, co-founded by former Myntara CEO Amar Nagaram, has raised $37 million in a fresh round of funding as the young company looks to build a “global fashion brand” from the South Asian market.
Virgio’s Series A funding, co-led by Process Ventures, Alpha Wave and Accel, is valuing the one-year startup at $161 million (after cash). (Vergio says it was founded this year, but did not disclose its seed funding round.)
Vergio said that consumers’ fashion preferences are changing rapidly and they are not satisfied with the offerings of the authorities. It’s trying to solve this by streamlining the design, manufacturing, and buying processes in “real time,” providing a platform for Gen-Z and millennials alike to discover and buy the latest, trendiest clothes.
Virgio offers a wide selection in casual, party and ethnic wear. It adds new selections every week and customers receive great discounts and free shipping.
The rookie’s approach has prompted some to draw comparisons between the model and the behemoth Shin.
“Traditionally, the fashion industry has worked on deep and minimalist models,” Vergio founder and CEO Nagaram said in a statement.
“At the heart of Vergio is a technology foundation, which is always listening to changing trends on social media platforms and predicts the demand for each trend. This feeds into an efficient and responsive supply chain to enable the most trendy, stylish and yet affordable line in real time. So Vergio is testing and She is pioneering a scale approach, making runway fashion accessible and affordable to all consumers and eliminating excess inventory for manufacturers,” said Flipkart veteran Nagaram, who took over the top job from Myntra in 2019 before leaving the company last year.
The startup says its full-stack approach is allowing it to compress its typical eight-to-ten-month lead time down to one month. The eponymous app has garnered more than 100,000 downloads, he said. (On Sensor Tower, the app is still too small to reflect very small measurements.)
Currently, there is a huge market for branded clothing in India. For example, for women, ~25% fashion is branded clothing. The fashion industry in India is at a turning point, driven by changing consumer preferences driven by the influence of social media, combining individualism as an expression and social commerce with social media platforms. In a statement by Ashutosh Sharma, Head of India Investments at Process Ventures.
He added, “We are confident in Virgio’s tech-first model and believe that the startup’s expert founding team is uniquely positioned to capture the huge opportunity in the Indian fashion industry.
Many other entrepreneurs – Mukesh Bansal, Kunal Shah, Binny Bansal, Bhavesh Agarwal, Vidit Atri, Saif Ali Khan, Sriharsha Majethi and Sameer Nigam – also invested in the round.
