Delhi-based fashion house, High Street Essentials (HSE), the parent company behind women’s fashion brands, FabAlley and Indya, has raised Rs 25.50 Cr in a round of funding led by its existing investors Elevation Capital, India Quotient, Dominor Holding and family offices. The latest infusion of capital comes after the company raised INR 20.75 Cr in June 2020 in the midst of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Started in 2012 by Shivani Poddar and Tanvi Malik, HSE has pioneered fast fashion in the country and is among the first Indian fashion retailers to have a robust omnichannel retail model. During the first wave of 2020, the company also ventured into new categories that were pertinent to the pandemic situation such as fashion masks, loungewear, and formal keyboard-up dressing options. Earlier this year, the fashion house forayed into the personal care segment with the launch of an in-house brand, Indya Skin Care. This year also saw the company launch a new Indian daywear brand called Earthen by Indya and a collaborative capsule collection with acclaimed designer Payal Singhal.
Over the course of 2020, HSE heavily strengthened its digital presence with new initiatives such as a subscription-based shopping experience, and catalogue curation with AI-based recommendations based on customers’ affinity and data mining. The company also grew its global footprint by partnering with international marketplaces such as Namshi, Amazon US, and Zalora. Overall, the last 12 months saw the online presence of HSE brands grow and strengthen manifold, and currently, online revenue accounts for over 50% of the total revenue of the company.
The new capital raised will be utilized for expanding the brands’ D2C footprint both domestically and internationally by adding more personalised solutions to proprietary web and app products and expanding brands’ presence with global eCommerce conglomerates. Technology has been the backbone of the company in the last 8 years and will continue to be strengthened to deliver a stellar customer experience. Apart from this, the company is planning to make its supply chain even more agile by in-housing key production processes such as printing and embroidering, thus enabling a 30-day mind-to-market production turn-around, comparable to global fashion leaders such as Zara and Boohoo.
Speaking on the occasion, Shivani Poddar and Tanvi Malik, Co-Founders, HSE said, “We value the continued support of our investors and customers, who have been crucial to our continued success, both in economically robust times and during this pandemic-stricken year. Over the course of the past year, we have worked extremely hard as a team by adopting strict cost-cutting measures, further leveraging our nimble supply chain, improving D2C Customer Experience, expanding into low capital-intensive channels, and foraying into recession-proof categories in fashion and beauty so that HSE further solidifies its position as a leading women’s lifestyle and fashion retail company in the industry.”
HSE reported a gross revenue of INR 180 Cr in FY20, reflecting a healthy year-on-year top-line growth, even with the disruption caused due to the pandemic.
