Online Fashion Retailer Yepme Raises Funding From Gokaldas Exports

Online fashion retailer, Yepme has reportedly secured an undisclosed amount of funding from listed garment exporter, Gokaldas Exports Ltd.

As per the company’s Crunchbase profile, it secured $45 Mn in a financing round from undisclosed investors, as announced on May 8, 2017.

The startup will deploy the raised funds towards enhancing its brand building capacities and launching its ethnic wear range ahead of the Diwali festive season this year. Yepme will also use them to further the operations of its UK-based entity, Yepme UK Plc, that makes fashion products for international markets, including Europe, Middle East, and the US.

Launched in August 2010 by Vivek Gaur, Sandeep Sharma and Anand Jadhav, Yepme, is an online fashion brand that offers in-house fashion ranges for both men and women. Other than that, the portal also sells apparels, watches, specs, footwear and other items.

In September 2014, it raised $32.5 Mn from Helion Venture Partners II LLC, Capricorn Capital Partners and Morpheus Media Fund. In September 2015, it raised $75 Mn in a funding round led by Malaysian state fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad. Existing investor Helion Ventures also participated in this round of funding.

The startup had earlier raised $700K this month from Rainbow Digital Services and ILearnFinance Academy. As per documents filed with the Registrar of Companies, (RoC), VAS Data Services Pvt. Ltd. (Yepme’s parent company) had issued optionally convertible debentures to two companies, namely: Rainbow Digital Services Pvt. Ltd. and ILearnFinance Academy Pvt. Ltd, in May 2017.

This year, saw the startup was in the throes of unsavoury limelight when reports of massive layoffs surfaced in February 2017. It was reported that the company had shut down two of its units – warehousing and quality control and had fired close to 30 employees.

As per the RoC documents, Yepme posted net sales worth $16 Mn (INR 104.1 Cr) and losses worth $28 Mn (INR 183.8 Cr), for the FY 2015-16. This solidifies the fact that the company has been facing mounting losses, with an added increase in expenditure.

Queries sent to Yepme remained unanswered at the time of publication.

Last year in September, online fashion brand StalkBuyLove raised an undisclosed amount of funding from William Bissell, Managing Director of ethnic retailer Fabindia. In the same month, fashion discovery app Findow received an undisclosed amount of funding from Raj Singh Bhandal, Director, Next Media Works.

In October 2016, online fashion store FabAlley secured $2 Mn (INR 13 Cr)in its Series A round of funding from India Quotient and Indian Angel Network. This year in February, Bengaluru-based fashion discovery app Wooplr raised $8 Mn in Series B round of funding from Sistema Asia fund, a proprietary fund floated by Sistema JSFC.

Other startups in the fashion retail segment include Voonik, Fynd, Roposo, etc.

[This development was reported by BusinessWorld.]

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