Meet the Uber of Indian women’s fashion: 100 orders a day for 15-week-old app

Photo Credit: Bea Serendipity

A woman proposes to her boyfriend in a beautiful outfit, and he says yes. He, of course, may not know that the pretty lady has dressed up in rented clothes to impress him. But the love story has one more protagonist.

Before anyone comes to a hasty conclusion, let me name Flyrobe, the Mumbai-based online fashion rental service that had clothed the woman, as the third party in this happy trio! Launched in September last year by a bunch of IIT grads, the startup claims to have transacted with 1,000 customers already, and closed 2015 with 100 customers on a single day – when it was just 15 weeks old.

The concept of collective consumption is still nascent in India and has largely seen action in the transportation, accommodation, and food and beverages sectors. But online fashion rental firms like Flyrobe, Klozee, The Clothing Rental, and SwishList are giving the story of India’s shared economy a twist.

“We want to be to clothes what Uber and Ola are to cabs,” Sreejita Deb, their chief business officer, tells Tech In Asia.

Flyrobe estimates that the fashion rental market, including western and ethnic wear in large Indian cities, is worth US$4-5 billion. And in this space, it claims to be surging ahead.

“Around 40,000 people have downloaded our app, and there are 14,000 who open it on a monthly basis,” says Sreejita, a Harvard graduate who has also worked at Amazon, Google, and InMobi.

When you have to shell out INR 9,500 (US$142) for a QuirkBox dress in the market, but can hire it from Flyrobe at almost one-tenth the price, why not?

Rent it, don’t spend it

Co-founders Shreya, Tushar, and Pranay

The founders – Shreya Mishra, Pranay Surana, and Tushar Saxena – are from IIT-Bombay as are many others in the team. They came together over the belief that the application of ‘shared economy’ to fashion could be very powerful.

“We started this company because we were really intrigued by the concept of a sharing economy. The technical challenges of on-demand coupled with fashion, which has its own complexities of size, brands, and personal preferences, drew me to this space,” says Tushar.

Consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates the global sharing economy will grow from US$15 billion today to US$335 billion by 2025. But it is still at a nascent stage in India. Those in the transportation, accommodation, and food and beverages sectors are driving India’s shared economy.

Investor interest too is picking up. In November, furniture rental company RentoMojo secured US$2 million in funding. Bangalore-based Klozee raised a seed round from TracxnLabs and angels in August.

Dressed to kill

Hurdles in the business