High Street Essentials Raises Rs 20.75 Cr Funding

High Street Essentials (HSE), the parent company of women's fashion brands FabAlley and Indya, on Saturday said it has raised Rs 20.75 crore in a fresh round of funding led by existing investors, SAIF Partners and India Quotient.

The pre-series C round involves a convertible note, which will be converted during the series C raise, a statement said.

The new round of funding has also seen participation from Abhishek Dalmia and several family offices, it added.

A convertible note is a short-term debt that converts into equity, typically in a future financing round in a startup.

The latest infusion of capital comes shortly after the company had raised Rs 8 crore in venture debt from Trifecta Capital in January this year. The company has raised over Rs 97 crore in equity funding and Rs 13 crore in venture debt.

'The new capital raised will be utilised for expanding the brands' D2C (digital to consumer) footprint 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 statement said.

To address the current situation, the company has also ventured into new categories such as fashion masks, lounge-wear, and formal keyboard-up dressing options.

HSE's Indya brand has seen massive online growth internationally during the last fiscal year, which will be harnessed further by adding localised offers, currencies, and payment methods, the statement said.

Started in 2012 by Shivani Poddar and Tanvi Malik, HSE has scaled up its retail footprint in FY20 with 13 new Indya stores and five FabAlley stores, along with expanding both brands to over 400 shop-in-shops across the country.

'In the midst of this unprecedented global crisis, we are working hard to ensure that we leverage all our assets such as our nimble supply chain, data-led designing and sharp focus on customer experience so that HSE emerges as a leading fashion retail company in the industry,' Poddar said.

HSE reported net revenue of Rs 90.2 crore in FY19, with a net profit of Rs 1.3 crore.

(PTI)