Red Polka raises seed round to help ladies avoid fashion faux pas

Ladies, don’t let another fashion faux pas leave you red-faced. A Mumbai-based startup called Red Polka claims to have the answers to your fashion woes.

Online fashion and lifestyle curation portal RedPolka has closed its first round of angel funding and raised US$250,000 with the help of five angel investors. The online portal provides a platform for sellers to showcase their designs to a targeted audience. Brands sign up with Red Polka for a fee to reach out to women shoppers, and Red Polka takes a commission of sales.

The startup was founded in January 2015 by Vishakha Singh, a marketing and brand-management professional. Red Polka employs a team of in-house curators, content writers, relationship managers, and techies. It’s also hiring people with specific skill sets like artificial intelligence. “Together, our team discovers niche designs and brands and showcases them through weekly fashion themes,” says Singh.

The startup plans to use the funds to build its mobile app, expand its team, and enhance user experience. The company plans to launch its app in the next few months. Red Polka also intends on scaling up its business and will be raising more funds in the near future. “Now that we have gained the attention of our investors, shoppers, and designers, we would like to take a step further and build a model with enhanced user engagement. It would help us to drive more transactions for our partners. Value for them translates into our growth,” Singh says.

Red Polka’s competition includes Bangalore-based fashion discovery startup Wooplr, which recently closed a series A round of US$5 million from Helion Ventures. Roposo, a Gurgaon-based startup, is also a major player in this space. Tiger Global recently invested US$5 million in it.

Singh claims that Red Polka’s business model is different from its competitors. “While one pushes data using consumer location, the other initiates and relies on social conversation around fashion. However, our expertise lies in understanding the shoppers’ behavior and showcasing products based on their interest graphs. Our effective user engagement model is the reason why 30-35 per cent of our daily visitors are repeat buyers,” states Singh.