Though Flipkart-owned Myntra is already the largest online fashion portal in India but it seeks to broaden the spectrum by investing in 15-20 brands in coming months. These fresh investments will be forged under Myntra’s business as a part of its Brand Accelerator programme. A company executive further told LiveMint that Myntra will witness an influx many other international brands as well.
Selected brands will also be assisted with capital benefits to scale up their business. Myntra plans to usher a strategic partnership with them so as to affirm long term benefits. Myntra aims to generate massive revenues from these private brands in next three years. The e-retailer deems that within this span Myntra’s valuation will surge well-over $500 million-$1 billion.
The company introduced its Brand Accelerator programme in December last year. Following that, the company acquired a majority stake in HRX, a widely popular brand launched by Hrithik Roshan.
Discussing their current plans, Ananya Tripathi, strategy head at Myntra, said,
One of the big bets we are making is with the Brand Accelerator. We are getting into strategic partnerships with at least 15-20 (local) brands—many of these export houses do great quality manufacturing. What we have is the distribution, which is 18 million customers.
So, what we are saying is, ‘Why don’t we come together in a partnership?’ And we are going to invest through our platform in 15 big brands in our country and together we will try to get to a point where in 3 years Myntra has helped create an ecosystem of local brands.
She further adds that Myntra is open to having an omni-channel presence because for big brands offline is also an important channel for visibility. One of the major concerns, however, lies in licensing agreements of the to-be-acquired brands. The e-retailer also plans to onboard a few private labels to its platform. On being questioned about what kind of brands Myntra is eyeing, Tripathi said,
On the M&A and inorganic side, we are looking at brands that have created something in niche areas…we are looking at those kinds of deals because it essentially crunches our time to market.
This year on the engagement side, we are actively looking out for technology firms globally or in India who are solving fashion problems. And we are very clear about the kind of problems—for instance, personalization, artificial intelligence, etc. That is one big focus area.
