Some heavy artillery coming in for Jaipur’s nascent but growing startup ecosystem. Voylla, a Jaipur-based online store of fashion jewellery and accessories, has secured around $15 million in fresh funding from Peepul Capital, a private equity firm. As per the CEO, the fund will be used to enhance its technology, building its brand and expanding its business to offline channel.
As a part of the deal, Surya Mantha, who works as an investment director at Peepul Capital, will join the board of the company. Earlier, the company had raised around Rs.13 crore from Snow Leopard Technology Ventures and undisclosed angel investors.
Founded in 2012, Voylla provides exclusive jewellery and accessories from talented designers in India to worldwide customers at attractive prices. It has jewellery for every occasion, including traditional, modern, gemstone, chunky and fashion jewellery.
With more than 7,000 unique designs, Voylla.com keeps pace with the changing trends and styles. It is also claiming to be continuously adding more than 500 products every week.
It aims to empower its customers to make well-informed decisions about their purchases by delivering authoritative information on products through accurate product displays, detailed descriptions and illustrative sizing charts.
The company will expand its physical store network to over 100 outlets. It will set up 40 exclusive stores across the country while the rest would consist of shop-in-shop and franchise outlets. The first one will be in West Delhi’s Rajouri Garden, which will start in a month.
It has partnered and integrated with more than 30 online marketplaces. Out of those 30 marketplaces, 25 are in India, including Flipkart and Snapdeal, while the rest of them are in the US, the UK and Middle East. It also has three shop-in-shop stores in India in partnership with Future Group’s Central Mall.
Vishwas Shringi, founder and chief executive of Voylla, said,
Even in the US, not more than 30% of the business is online, 70% is still offline. So to talk about India, there is no way we will reach more than 15% in the next five years. The large part of it is still going to be offline and it makes complete sense to go offline and capture a large piece of the offline market.
Surya Mantha, investment director, Peepul Capital, said,
With its manufacturing capability, ecosystem relationships and technology expertise, Voylla is uniquely positioned to create a valuable business and life-style brand over the coming quarters and years.
