Voonik makes acquisition #5, nabs fashion discovery platform Dekkoh
Fashion marketplace Voonik has acquired Dekkoh for an undisclosed amount. Over the last few months, the Bengaluru-based company had acqui-hired Zohraa, Picksilk, Styl, TrialKart and Getsy.
Founded in 2013, Voonik has made a number of acquisitions with the aim of expansion.
Fashion discovery platform, Dekkoh was founded by Aditya Chalsani and Varun Mathew. Aditya Chalasani graduated from University of Southern California in 2011 and later worked at Oracle in California while Varun Mathew, graduated from NLSIU Bangalore in 2011, and was an Angela Merkel Fellow studying the Euro Crisis in 2012. He later worked as a PE & M&A Lawyer after which he co-founded Dekkoh.
The platform allows users to chat one-on-one with their own personal stylist and buy clothing and accessories that suit them. It connects stylist community of more than 200 stylists to consumers seeking fashion advice and also have a rule-based chat bot technology.
Voonik CEO and Co-Founder Sujayath Ali said,
Voonik is built around personalised fashion, to provide every customer a solution and opportunity to be fashionable every day. Personalisation is what has set us miles ahead of competition. The Dekkoh platform is doing the same through an engaged community of stylists and a highly data-driven profiling and chatbots. We will use their expertise in further strengthening our personalisation engine. There is a great synergy between the Voonik and Dekkoh platforms and we are happy to onboard a talented team.
Voonik’s funding
After raising $5 million in Series A funding in June last year, Voonik succeeded in raising a Series B round, led by Sequoia Capital, to the tune of $20 million earlier this year. Times Internet, Seedfund, Beenos, Beenext, Parkwood Bespin, Tancom Investments and Kunal Shah also participated in the round. Altogether, the company has so far raised $27 million in funding.
At the time of the Series B round being raised, the company had claimed that Voonik has crossed 35,000 shipments a day. Voonik’s boutique marketplace Vilara is also getting good traction, from both high-end users as well as from many designers and boutiques.
It also claimed to have touched $100 million in annual GMV (Gross Merchandise Value), with a revenue run rate of $13 million.
E-commerce Scenario
A recent study by IAMAI estimated that e-commerce in India will cross Rs 2 lakh crore this year. Online retail has grown by 57 percent since December 2014, with electronic goods and fashion contributing close to 50 percent of overall spend in e-tail.
With Jabong’s acquisition by Flipkart-owned Myntra and other fashion marketplaces like Zivame raising funds, the battle is not getting over soon. The fight for greater market share and the urge to strengthen positions will surely keep acquisitions and investments soaring for some time to come.