India's The Souled Store raises ₹75 cr led by Elevation Capital

Mumbai-based casual wear brand The Souled Store last week raised ₹75 crore as part of its series B funding led by Elevation Capital. The company will use the funds to expand its product portfolio on both licensed merchandise and casualwear; building better brand awareness and offline retail presence across India, and expand manufacturing capabilities.

The investment round also saw participation from angel investors and start-up founders, including Sahil Barua, co-founder of Delhivery; Gunjan Soni, chief executive officer of Zalora; Revant Bhate, co-founder of Mosaic Wellness; and Ramakant Sharma, founder of Livspace.

Founded in 2013, The Souled Store designs, manufactures and retails apparel products. It has partnerships with more than 150 franchisees.

“We are super excited to be partnering with a highly reputed fund like Elevation Capital that believes in this vision. Their vast experience in backing and helping scale some of the biggest startups in India makes them the perfect partner for us. The focus, going forward, will be to introduce a variety of new product categories, enhance our customer reach, and expand our offline presence pan India," said Vedang Patel, co-founder and chief executive.

The company is looking at crossing ₹1,000 crore in gross merchandise value (GMV) by 2025, Vedang Patel, co-founder and chief executive officer of the company was quoted as saying by Indian media reports. The platform witnesses about 200,000 daily visitors on its website and app.

“The Souled Store has successfully capitalized on India’s pop culture, which has led to its unique positioning. We were thoroughly impressed by the kind of scale that the company has built in a capital efficient manner. This growth is a consequence of the company’s relentless focus on customer experience to drive loyalty & data-driven merchandising to manage inventory and keep operations lean," said Deepak Gaur, partner, Elevation Capital.

The company was 'bootstrapped' for the first five years and received seed funding from RP-SG Ventures in November 2018.