FabAlley raises $2mn funding from angels, IAN, FOA Ventures, India Quotient

Online fashion brand FabAlley has raised $2 million in a Series A round of funding from India Quotient, existing investor Indian Angel Network (IAN), angel investors Tushar Singh and Ranjan Sharma, and FAO Ventures. FabAlley had raised the seed round from IAN in 2013.

FabAlley intends to expand to more cities in the coming year. In a press release, Co-founder Shivani Poddar said, “We are on track to hit Rs 100 crore in GMV in 2017–18 and will continue to focus on building a profitable and sustainable business in the long term.” FabAlley’s average order size is Rs 1600, and they get 1,700–1,800 orders a day (more than 50,000 in a month).

FabAlley was founded in 2012 by Tanvi Malik and Shivani Poddar, who quit their high-paying jobs in Titan Industries, Unilever, and Avendus Capital to follow their dream of entrepreneurship. They were hoping to fill the gap in fashion which was not available in India at affordable prices at that time. Four years down the line, their growth trajectory has led FabAlley to a profitable H1 2016–17. FabAlley claims to have recorded 100 percent annual growth since inception.

In a press release, Madhukar Sinha, Partner, India Quotient said, “Indian fashion e-commerce has a lot of curators and aggregators but very few Indian brands. FabAlley is already a leading brand and we believe that with this investment they would be able to scale up rapidly. The founding team has executed with sharp focus on the right metrics and has shown great promise of building a premium online brand for women.” Grabhouse, Holachef, Roposo, and Lendingkart are among India Quotient’s portfolio companies.

In July 2016, FabAlley ventured into the offline segment through a tie-up with Central Mall — a multi-brand store operated by the Future Group. Currently, they have 25 outlets at Central Malls in cities like Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Patna, Ahmedabad, Surat, Hyderabad, Pune, and Lucknow and are targeting 45 more. FabAlley now has a 150- member team.

Besides marketing, brand building, strategic tie-ups, and endorsements, Tanvi said that they are planning to enter other large format chains along with starting their own exclusive brand outlets in the next 18 months. “The second focus area will be product expansion and growing our two sub-brands. Currently, FabAlley has over 3,000 SKUs and has recently launched sub-brands — Curve (fashionable clothing for plus-size women) and Indya (Indo-Western fusion collection) at affordable prices. In the near future, we will add other categories such as fitness wear, swimwear, and lingerie to our portfolio,” she added.

Although this year has seen a lull in startup funding compared to 2015, the fintech and e-commerce sectors have been better off. Fashion-oriented online sellers Blinge and Dazl are among the few. In the first half of the year, 670 startups were funded — out of which only 21 had women founders. FabAlley joins the likes of FreshMenu and Sheroes in that category.