Gurgaon-based Footwear start-up Solethreads has raised Rs13 crore in Series A round of funding led by DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital, the company said.
Solethreads is digital first brand that sells open footwear or mostly flip-flops targeting the casual and leisure footwear market in India. The brand sells its products through its own site, apart from marketplaces such as Amazon, Myntra, Flipkart and Ajio.
Solethreads is in the process of stepping up its offline presence through a partnership with footwear retailer Metro Shoes, the company said. The brand will roll out customized, personalized footwear in the future.
Solethreads was founded by Sumant Kakaria and Gaurav Chopra in 2018. They were joined by co-founders Vikram Iyer and Aprajit Kathuria in early 2020. It has over 4,00,000 consumers.
Direct-to-consumer brands across apparel, footwear, packaged foods etc are seeing dominance in the retail and consumer goods market as they fill the vacuum in the country’s unorganized retail market. Reach and consumer access to online marketplaces, on the other hand, has also helped these brands establish a direct route to market.
Mention may be made that the open footwear category in India is over $1.5 billion growing at a CAGR of 15%. Solethreads will use the funds to invest in brand-building and expanding its reach.
Ash Lilani, Managing Partner, Saama Capital said the team has a very strong understanding of the product category as well as the digital landscape, which makes them the best guys to drive this segment.
DSG Consumer Partners is an early-stage venture capital investment firm that exclusively invests in consumer businesses in India and Southeast Asia. Saama Capital is an early stage, sector agnostic, India-focused venture capital firm with investments in Sula Wines, Veeba Foods, Lendingkart, Chaipoint among others.
