After raising $1.7 million in its seed round, fashion rental platform Flyrobe has now raised $5.3 million in a Series A round, led by IDG Ventures, along with the participation from Sequoia Capital and Tokyo-based GREE Ventures.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Paytm and Stanhope Capital chairman Leon SeynaveWith have also participated in this round of funding. With this Series A round, the funding raised by the company is now $7 million.
With this round of funding, the company is planning to scale and grow its business four-to-five times by March 2017. It is also going to triple its designer roster to 150 and launch in five more cities.
Shreya Mishra, co-founder and chief executive at Flyrobe, said,
We want to build the country’s largest virtual wardrobe which women can rely whenever they have an occasion. We see the total fashion retail market as $50 billion and the event based apparel market at $10-$15 billion. We want to take a slice of the pie.
Founded by Shreya Mishra, Pranay Surana and Tushar Saxena in 2015, Flyrobe allows users to rent premium apparel and accessories, and curates apparel and accessories from designers such as Ritu Kumar and Masaba Gupta, among others. It currently operates in Mumbai and Delhi and plans to branch out to Hyderabad and Bengaluru in the coming months.
The company had earlier raised $1.7 million from Sequoia Capital along with angel investors. Other investors in the firm include Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Freecharge founders Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, and Toppr founder Zishaan Hayath.
Karan Mohla, executive director at IDG Ventures India, said,
There is massive latent demand for aspirational products, which Flyrobe is providing access to. Flyrobe will build on its position through tie-ups with prominent designers and expanding their brand offerings.
Abheek Anand, Principal, Sequoia India, said,
Flyrobe has quickly emerged as the largest and most loved fashion rental platform in India. We are excited to continue to partner with them on their journey to change the way users across the country dress.
Apart from Flyrobe, other startups working on similar fashion renting model includes LibeRent and SwishList. While several fashion renting portals have struggled to scale their business, Klozee shut down its business in May.
According to consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global sharing economy will grow from US$15 billion today to US$335 billion by 2025.
