National | 21st January 2021: Fashinza, a B2B manufacturing marketplace that solves apparel/fashion supply chain challenges by connecting fashion brands to experienced manufacturers, has announced that they have secured a seed funding of $2.6 million. The funds are to be utilized in solving apparel supply challenges by digitising the entire sourcing cycle from design to delivery. The start-up provides absolute transparency during the production process through regular updates/notifications for brands on their AI-based platform. The initial seed funding round was led by Accel Partners and Elevation Capital with participation of marquee individual investors – Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, co-founders of Snapdeal, and Alok Mittal, co-founder of Indifi. The global apparel industry was set to reach a value of $1.5 trillion US dollars in 2020 with the global demand on the rise but the growth was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The European Union, United States, and China are the 3 largest markets for the apparel industry while the APAC region has the highest growth rate. Countries like China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and India have emerged as the leading suppliers in the industry.
Commenting on the funding they’ve received, Pawan Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder, Fashinza, said, “The global apparel supply chain needs technology driven intervention for it to become efficient and fair. It needs to be more agile and it should be able to respond to changes much more quickly than it does at present. For instance, during the pandemic, when the retail orders dived south, we were able to provide a scalable demand-supply matching platform for all PPEs and enabled the production of complete PPE kits by onboarding a greater number of suppliers in the moment of need. The funding that we have received is an acknowledgment of our potential to transform the apparel supply chain and it will be invested to facilitate our growth in different directions. We are expanding our network of manufacturers globally and are working with leading brands across 10 countries. Our mission here is to combine innovation with sustainability.
In his comments, Pratik Agarwal, Vice President, Accel Partners, said, “We’re proud to be partners with Fashinza as they represent the ambition of next-gen Indian founders going after large global opportunities. The time is right for Fashinza as they reinvent the $500bn global fashion supply chain for the e-commerce era. Pawan and Abhishek are exceptional operators who put team and customer success first and have instilled the right cultural DNA in Fashinza very early on.”
According to Akarsh Shrivastava, Vice President, Elevation Capital, “Apparel industry has undergone multiple shifts over the past decade. Rise of direct to consumer brands and advent of fast fashion have pushed brands and retailers to be faster and more agile. Fashinza, with its product and tech-led approach, is democratizing this fast fashion supply chain, enabling both brands and suppliers with the wherewithal to navigate these shifts. We are excited to partner with Pawan and Abhishek in building a global company.”
