Fashion tech gets skinnier in India with ecommerce site’s fifth acquisition of the year

Photo credit: indiraswork / 123RF.

Just when you thought fashion couldn’t slim down any more, Bangalore-based Voonik has made a move to help further consolidate India’s fashion tech space – the fashion marketplace has acquired Dekkoh, a fashion search engine.

Dekkoh’s inclusion is one of many that Voonik has made in the past few months. In February, it added Bangalore-based men’s fashion site Getsty to the club. Its other acquisitions include fashion site Zohraa (now called Vilara), silk saree marketplace Picksilk, salon booking app Styl, and virtual dressing room app TrialKart.

Founded by USC grad Aditya Chalsani and lawyer Varun Mathew, Dekkoh connects users with one of 200 personal stylists who can be reached via chat. Customers may then buy clothing through the app, which also has a chatbot feature.

According to Voonik co-founder and CEO Sujayanth Ali, Dekkoh’s personalization feature appealed to Voonik, which employs artificial intelligence to help users find items based off their previous purchases and search criteria.

Aditya previously worked at Oracle, a California-based software company. Varun has worked in mergers and acquisitions, as well as microfinance and private equity.

Founded in 2013 by Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan, Voonik helps fashionistas fill their closets with a focus on personalization. It claims to have over 12 million registered users with 10 million app downloads. Its platform features over 20,000 vendors.

In a statement, Aditya said he hopes Dekkoh’s addition will help it reach 15 million customers across India.

There’s been lots of action in India’s fashion tech scene. Last month, Voonik announced it had raised US$3 million from Innoven Capital, just months after its series B round in June. The previous week, Myntra acquired Jabong.

Flyrobe, a fashion rental site, announced its series A funding earlier this week. Among the investors was Japan-based Gree Ventures, which made its first investment in India.