PointAI Bags INR 47 Cr To Take Its Virtual Try-On Offering Global

AI startup PointAI (erstwhile Try ND Buy) has raised INR 47 Cr ($5.3 Mn) in its Pre-Series A funding round led by Yali Capital, with participation from VC firm Walden International’s Chairman Lip-Bu Tan and investment firm Tremis Capital. 

With the fresh capital, the Noida-based startup plans on accelerating product development, expanding its global and domestic market reach, and further advancing its core technology capabilities.

“The company recently rebranded from Try ND Buy to PointAI to reflect its core technological foundation, a proprietary parallel AI architecture developed entirely in-house by its team of scientists and backed by 70+ global patents,” it said in a statement.

Founded by Nitin Vats in 2018, PointAI develops “virtual try-on” tech that creates realistic 3D body models that allows customers to try on the products virtually on their own body model while shopping online. The platform claims to render each media file within 1–2 seconds, compared to several minutes required by traditional models, at a cost up to 90% lower than popular GenAI-based alternatives. 

The Noida-based startup has a presence in the US (San Francisco), the UK (London) and China (Shanghai). Its clientele includes the likes of Flipkart, Aditya Birla Capital, Myntra, Amazon SPN, Allen Solly, Peter England, among others.

The startup has raised a total of $10 Mn in funding till date from investors including Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and Hughes Systique cofounder Vinod Sood.

The Indian startup ecosystem around virtual-try-on (VTO) tech has seen encouraging growth in recent years, thanks to the confluence of ecommerce expansion, rising smartphone penetration and a push to reduce shopping uncertainty in apparel and accessories. 

According to industry estimates, the AR-in-fashion market in India (covering VTOs for apparel, jewellery and accessories) is expected to breach $800 Mn by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 38% between 2024-30. 

Moreover, Inc42’s fashion-ecommerce report from last highlighted how VTO is poised to become a  key ‘AI & GenAI’ use-case for the Indian D2C fashion market. The broader utilisation of GenAI in marketing and sales has the potential to increase the operating profits of the apparel, fashion, and luxury sectors by an estimated $150 Bn to $275 Bn.

Amid this, several Indian ventures have begun to carve out VTO- and AR-enabled offering, often as B2B SaaS platforms serving ecommerce players, brands as well as customers. 

Glance launched its Gen AI-based shopping app in May, allowing users a virtual try-on feature that creates a personalised AI twin for shopping. The feature allows users to try on outfits and visualize their style on their own digital reflection.