Startup luxury fashion portals Darveys and Confidential Couture are planning to raise funds and are also eyeing international expansion, their founders said.
Darveys.com is a members only fashion portal founded in 2014, which sells clothing and accessories of several global brands, including Fendi, Jimmy Choo and Eremenegildo Zegna. Its founder Nakul Bajaj said the company is evaluating the options available with some strategic partners.
Bajaj said the company broke even in December and is planning to cross the Rs 60-crore gross merchandise value mark in sales in the next financial year from India.
“Over the next quarter, we shall be adding six new brands, which are currently not available in the country. Also, we are launching our kids section this quarter, which would mean adding around 20 designers not available in the country yet. Our 2017 year-end target is achieving over 1 lakh active members. We should be able to achieve the same a quarter before the scheduled target timeline,” said Bajaj.
Members on Darveys.com pay a one-time registration fee of Rs 1,000. The company is also looking at a foray into the luxury real estate market. “When we say luxury real estate market, we are specifically looking at designer luxury apartments in partnership with international luxury brands,” said Bajaj.
“We shall be looking to raise funds for our international expansion plans next year. Our focus in the beginning was to be financially stable by breaking even operationally and now that we have achieved it, we are looking at growth while being a profitable company at the same time,” Bajaj said.
Confidential Couture is a portal founded in 2014, specialising in the purchase and sale of preowned designer accessories. From 4-5 sales transactions a week during its launch years, the company is averaging 10 transactions a day and has added six new designers since January 2016.
“We are aggressively adding newer designers and product categories. We just recently launched men’s accessories and watches. We are currently developing our app, and also adding different and simpler payment options. For the sellers we are adding instant quotations for their products,” said Anvita Mehra, Founder Confidential Couture.
Mehra said the funds will be used to scale up hiring, advertising, marketing, to have more visibility and deeper penetration in metros, and tier 1& tier 2 cities, for better customer care support and increased automation in the processes.
“We will also have strategic partnerships with pre-owned portals for international expansion,” she said.
Source: The Economic Times
