Bangalore-based fashion rental marketplace, Duffl has today announced that it has bagged an undisclosed angel investment from technology product incubator, BetOnIndia Technology Pvt. Ltd.
The concept behind the inception of Duffl is quite simple and straight-forward. It wants you to rent premium fashion brands and designer clothing temporarily instead of paying a fortune for the same. The company hosts a variety of products for both men and women, ranging from ethnic to western wear with custom fit options available as well.
Founded by husband-wife duo, Nisha Khatwani and Mithun Chandra back in December 2014, the company aims to utilize the funds into strengthening its core technology, expanding inventory and sensible marketing.
Duffl aims to quadruple its inventory for both men’s and women’s categories, so that it can offer a broad variety of products for the customers to choose from. This they believe will lead to a 10 fold increase in sales within the next six months of operation. The company is focused to build a formidable brand that resonates with the quality and high-end brand labels that it has to offer in India.
Commenting on the angel investment, Mithun Chandra, co-founder and CEO, said that,
In this business, achieving positive unit economics is the main challenge. Once you have decent inventory, and all other peripheral processes in place, it’s not hard to boost sales by pumping in money. But it will prove to be a challenge at scale when burn is uncontrollable and you lose four to six times the money on every order.
Mithun also adds that this is a new market experience for the Indian masses, who are still warming up to the idea of renting clothes online. The company is focused to build its brand while striving for unit economics in the long run.
So, you must now be wondering — you have a party to attend a week later, how do you rent a nice dress for yourself?
The process of booking a dress is as simple as purchasing anything on an e-commerce store. Just browse through the brand or product categories and pick the dress you like, the date of the event, your address and you’ve booked a pretty ‘branded’ dress to flaunt to your friends.
The company is also focused on the hygiene of the clothes, so once you’ve worn the dress, it is picked up and subjected to industrial grade dry cleaning before and after use.
Currently the pre-owned fashion market is estimated to be worth about USD 5 billion out of which 1.05 billion is the pre-owned branded fashion market. But it is still at a nascent stage in India. And Duffl wants to tap that now that it has tweaked its business model and has sufficient market intelligence to push forward.
Chandra concludes by saying that,
We are confident if we block out the noise and stick to plan, we’ll have a business that solves a pressing problem for our customers, forges win-win business relationships with industry partners and most importantly assure our investors of a possible healthy exit.
