D2C brand Styched acquires Shark Tank-fame sneaker brand Flatheads

Singapore-headquartered direct-to-customer (D2C) fashion and lifestyle brand Styched acquired sneaker brand Flatheads, which was featured in Shark Tank India Season 2. The mixed cash and equity deal will help Flatheads with the cash payout to fund inventory, pay off vendor debts, and other financial commitments. 

Styched did not comment on the size of the deal or the valuation of Flatheads. According to market research and data platform Tracxn, Flatheads was valued at $3.53 million post-money as of May 2022.

Founded in 2018 by Ganesh Balakrishnan and Utkarsh Biradar, the sneaker brand had earlier raised funds from We Founder Circle, LetsVenture, and angel investors, among others.

Flatheads will continue to retail its products through its own website, with its mass-market offerings retailed on Styched’s website, said Soumajit Bhowmik, CEO of Styched. 

“For Flatheads, the SKUs priced over Rs 1,000 will be retailed on the Flatheads website, while the lower priced SKUs will be featured on the Styched site. We also plan on taking the brand outside of India as we have a larger target audience,” Bhowmik told YourStory, adding that the conversation with Flathead started much before the startup pitched on Shark Tank India.

He added, “We are planning to acquire three more brands in the mass-premium segment priced from Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,000 for a separate offering, including an athleisure brand, over the next few months. We are also in the process of closing a new round of funding.”  

Founded in 2019 by Bhowmik and Durga Dash, Styched competes with the likes of SheIn, Club Factory, and Vishal Megamart, targeting the value shopper. While Club Factory and SheIn were banned in India in June 2020 along with other Chinese apps, the latter is reportedly tying up with Reliance Retail to foray back into the country.

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“We are an on-demand and zero-wastage brand. We have zero inventory or warehousing. We don’t follow seasonal collections and upload new patterns and designs every week. We currently have 14,000 designs on our website,” Bhowmik said, highlighting that the company could scale because of its patented technology on the production side. 

Styched also works with 600 tailors in an on-demand model, where the tailors pick up pre-cut fabric and stitch it. The brand caters to mostly Tier II to Tier VI markets.

“Overall, in the fashion landscape in India, 85% of revenue comes from the top 10 cities, whereas for us, this market accounts for only 15% of revenue,” he said. 

Bhowmik added that the company recently tied up with a chain of malls to open kiosks in some localities in India. He claimed that Styched was already making Rs 75 lakh monthly GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) from its sales in the UAE, targeting the expat population. Its India GMV stood at Rs 3.5 crore per month for FY24 through its own app and website.

GMV is a metric used to calculate the total sales on an ecommerce platform over a particular period of time. 

The company also plans on starting operations in Indonesia later this year. Styched has raised $721,000 in angel and seed rounds across three separate rounds of equity fundraising.