Myntra’s former head of fashion startup, Virgio, is valued at $161 million in new funding • TechCrunch

Fashion startup Virgio, co-founded by Amar Nagaram, former chief executive of Myntra, has raised $37 million in a new financing round as the young company looks to establish a global fashion brand from the South Asian market.

Prosus Ventures, Alpha Wave, and Accel jointly lead Virgio’s Series A funding, valuing the one-year-old startup at $161 million (post-cash). (Virgio says it was founded this year, but hasn’t disclosed an initial funding round.)

virginia said consumers’ fashion preferences were changing rapidly and they were dissatisfied with incumbents’ offerings. It seeks to solve this by streamlining the design, manufacturing, and purchasing processes in “real time”, offering Gen-Z and late millennials a platform where they can discover and buy new trendy clothes.

Virgo offers a wide selection of casual, party and ethnic wear. Every week it adds new choices and customers receive big discounts and free shipping.

The startup’s approach has prompted some to draw comparisons between its model and the giant Shein.

Traditionally, the fashion industry operates on in-depth and discounted models, said Nagaram, the founder and chief executive of Virgio, in a statement.

At the heart of Virgo is a technology foundation, which is always listening to the developing trends on social media platforms and predicting the demand for each trend. This is then feed into our agile and responsive supply chain to enable the trendiest, elegant yet affordable lines in real-time. Therefore, Virgio pioneered testing and scaling methods, making runway fashion accessible and affordable to all consumers, while eliminating excess inventory for manufacturers, said Nagaram, a Flipkart veteran who took over at Myntra’s top job in 2019 before leaving the company last year.

The startup says its full-stack approach has allowed it to shorten its typical eight to ten month lead time to just one month. His eponymous app has amassed more than 100,000 downloads, he says. (In Sensor Tower, the app reflects very few metrics because it’s still too small.)

There is a huge underserved market for branded clothing in India today. For example, for women, only ~25% of fashion is brand name clothing. The fashion industry in India is at an inflection point, driven by changing consumer preferences as a result of the influence of social media, important Gen-Z characteristics to individualize as a form of expression, and the integration of social commerce with social media platforms,” said Ashutosh Sharma, Head of Investments India at Prosus Ventures, in a statement.

“We believe in Virgio’s technology-first model and believe the startup’s expert founding team is uniquely positioned to capture the huge opportunities in the Indian fashion industry,” he added.

Dozens of other entrepreneurs — including Mukesh Bansal, Kunal Shah, Binny Bansal, Bhavesh Agarwal, Vidit Aatrey, Saif Ali Khan, Sriharsha Majety, and Sameer Nigam — also invested in the round.