Amar Nagaram, the former CEO of Myntra and founder of the fast fashion company Virgio, announced that it has raised $37 million in an investment round co-led by Prosus Ventures, Alpha Wave Partner, and Accel Partners. Given the ongoing financing winter, this is a sizable money influx from institutional investors in an early-stage round.\
The investment arm of Dutch-listed internet giant Prosus was in advanced talks to invest in Virgio, joining companies like Accel and Alpha Wave, ET first reported in September. People briefed on the situation think that Virgio’s valuation will be approximately $160 million after this capital infusion, despite the fact that the round has been developed in stages.
The business stated that it will put the money toward expanding its technological investments and hiring more personnel.
Virgio is developing a fashion digital platform that will enable designers to discover customer preferences in real time, targeting Gen Z and late millennial audiences. It also envisions a network of tech-driven factories that will let designers produce prototypes fast, get customer feedback, and scale up production.
The Chinese fashion juggernaut Shein, which gained notoriety for its ultra-rapid fashion business strategy, is viewed as the equivalent of Virgio in India. Following a border conflict between India and China, the government forbade the corporation from conducting business in India.
As ET previously reported, Mukesh Bansal, the creator of Cultfit and the head of Tata Digital, is also a shareholder in the business. Other investors include the co-founder of Cred, Kunal Shah, the co-founders of Flipkart, Ola, Bhavish Aggarwal, Meesho, Saif Ali Khan, Sriharsha Majety, Mekin Maheswari, the co-founder of Swiggy, Sameer Nigam, the co-founder of Phonepe, Reddy Ventures, and Viko Ventures.
Recently, Virgio opened up its platform to users, and its app has already had over 100,000 downloads. One million new users joined the platform during its Singles’ Day sale last month. Virgio now has 20,000 users who are active every day.