Reliance Retail Acquires Majority Stake In D2C Lingerie Brand Clovia For INR 950 Cr

Reliance Retail has acquired an 89% stake in Purple Panda Fashions, the parent company of D2C lingerie startup Clovia.

The transaction has an investment of INR 950 Cr from Reliance Retail, which includes the purchase of shares and primary investment in the startup.

According to a joint statement, the founding team and the management will retain the remaining 11% stake in the startup.

Notably, this is not the first time Reliance Retail has picked up an innerwear brand. The retail giant already has the likes of Zivame and Amante under its innerwear segment, and Clovia makes for the third acquisition in the same field.

With this acquisition, RRVL will further strengthen its portfolio in the innerwear segment,  having already acquired Zivame and Amante. In 2020, Inc42 reported that Reliance Retail might pick up a 100% stake in Zivame, and the company eventually did pick up a 15% stake in the lingerie startup.

Clovia, which makes women’s intimate wear, was founded in 2013 by the husband-wife duo of Neha Kant and Pankaj Vermani, along with Suman Choudhary. Clovia has also recently elevated Soumya Kant and Abhay Batra to the founding team.

The startup claims to offer more than 3,500 product styles. It also follows an outsourcing model for its production.

In 2019, Clovia had raised $10 Mn in a Series B funding round led by AT Capital. Existing investors Ivy Cap Ventures and some private investors also joined the round.

Pankaj Vermani, founder and CEO of Clovia, said, “Through this partnership, we will benefit from Reliance’s scale and retail expertise, extending the presence of the brand and bringing together a stronger value proposition through world-class quality, design and fashion in the intimate wear category.”

According to a report by TechSci Research, India’s lingerie market stood at around $3 Bn in 2017 and is projected to grow at a robust CAGR of around 14% to reach $6.5 Bn by 2023, on the back of growing demand for lingerie sets, rising middle-class population and an increasing number of financially independent women.

Reliance Retail On A Shopping Spree

Recently, Reliance Retail has shifted its focus to B2C brands. In January this year, it acquired a  25.8% stake on a fully diluted basis in Dunzo, the hyperlocal delivery startup, for $200 Mn.

In 2022 itself, the company also acquired a 54% stake in Indian robotics startup Addverb Technologies for $132 Mn. This means that Clovia is already the third startup in which Reliance has picked a stake this year.

Last year, Reliance Retail picked up a controlling stake in JustDial, the 25-year-old Internet search and discovery platform for INR 3,497 Cr. In 2021 itself, the Mukesh Ambani-led company had picked up a 96.49% stake in Milkbasket, another D2C startup, for an undisclosed sum.

Going further back, it acquired a 60% stake in epharmacy startup Netmeds, for $83 Mn, in 2020, after months of speculation.