Japan’s Gree Ventures makes India debut in Uber for women’s fashion

Photo credit: Pixabay.

Growing up, I hated dress shopping for formal occasions. Inevitably, my mother and I would spend four to five hours picking out dresses, then narrowing that list down by what fit our budget. After all, why spend more than we had to on something that I was very likely going to wear once, unless I wanted to risk being a dreaded “outfit repeater,” as immortalized by The Lizzie McGuire Movie.

The same idea has been picking up in India and catching fire, with an “Uber for women’s fashion” looking pretty fly – fashion rental startup Flyrobe has announced US$5.3 million in series A funding. IDG Ventures led the round, while Japan-based venture capital firm Gree Ventures and existing investor Sequoia Capital also participated.

The funding marks Gree’s first foray into India. “Our conviction in the evolving fashion needs of the Indian market has further enhanced while working with this young and ambitious team focusing on strong business fundamentals,” says Yusuke Amano, CEO and partner of Gree Ventures.

The Mumbai-based startup for fashionistas brought in US$1.7 million in seed funding in July. In the meantime, it has seen Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl, Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Freecharge founder Kunal Shah, Toppr CEO Zishaan Hayath, and Belgium-based investor Leon Seynave as angel investors.

“We want to build India’s largest virtual closet so that women can wear anything they fancy without needing to buy it!” said co-founder and CEO Shreya Mishra in a statement.

A sea of fashion

Photo credit: fyletto / 123RF.

Shreya, along with fellow IIT Bombay graduates Pranay Surana and Tushar Saxena, founded the startup last September. Just 15 weeks in, it was getting 100 orders a day. It claims that half of its users are repeat customers and that it has doubled the number of designers on the platform in the past two months.

Through Flyrobe, shoppers can obtain clothing from brands like Ritu Kumar, Masaba Gupta, Quirk Box, and Outhouse for 10 to 15 percent of the normal price. They may then keep the clothing for three to four days before returning it.

According to Shreya, the funding will go toward Flyrobe’s goals of growing four or five times by March 2017, getting 150 designers on the platform, and launching in five more cities.

Other places to get your temporary fashion fix in India include The Clothing Rental, Liberent, and Swishlist. Wrapd lets you rent wedding clothes. Fashion rental startup Klozee shut down in May six months after raising seed funding.