VioletStreet secures Rs. 2 crore funding in angel round led by Venkat Vallabhaneni
Fashion social network VioletStreet.com has raised Rs. 2 crore in an angel round led by Venkat Vallabhaneni with participation from Srinivasa Rao Paturi. The company will utilize the funds to scale the technology, grow its team and increase its reach in the Indian market.
Following the round, Venkat Vallabhaneni, Former Senior Vice President of Bank of America and serial entrepreneur, and Sudhakar Reddy, Founder and CEO of Abhibus.com, will join the board of the company as directors.
The platform allows users to put together matching products to create fashion looks and have instant feedback from friends. “We give a rich, curated and social fashion shopping experience by aggregating products from all the stores, fashion feed from friends. Importantly, with Violetstreet, one can shop real time with friends and create a look all by simply dragging and dropping,” said Nayan Kumar, Co-Founder, Violetstreet.
The brainchild of Ankur Gupta and Nayan Kumar, VioletStreet is essentially a fashion community that integrates the excitement of offline shopping to the online world. Ankur has studied computer science at NIT, Allahabad, and worked for Microsoft R & D. Nayan is BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad, alumnus and a serial entrepreneur.
When it comes to traction, the Hyderabad-based venture has created 30,000 looks since its inception. At present, Violetstreet creates 3,000 looks on monthly basis. The company had previously raised Rs. 10 lakh in a TiE Smashup event held in May, 2014.
Speaking on the thesis behind the investment, lead investor Venkat Vallabhaneni said, “Fashion is a mode of self-expression and with everything moving online for Gen X, this is only a natural extension. We believe that fashion will be the key driver in the e-commerce growth story in India by 2015. We believe in the founders’ ability to build a strong team and technology around their idea.”
Going forward, the company plans to tap mobile users through apps. “Our targeted audience is young (18-26) and we see significant traction from mobile. We will invest in developing mobile apps for Android and other platforms soon,” added Nayan. The company aims to create one million fashion looks for users in the next six-eight months.
VioletStreet competes with Tiger Global-funded Limeroad that had raised $15 million in its Series B round of funding last year. Another player in this space is Voonik, a platform that uses inputs such a body shape, skin tone, height and personal style and tastes to help customers choose the best possible product for them.
Website: Violetstreet
