Women-focused media platform POPxo forays into offline retail

Delhi-based Luxeva Ltd, which runs women-focused digital media platform POPxo, announced on Thursday that it has made its foray into the offline retail channel with the launch of its first standalone outlet in New Delhi.

To build on the opening of their maiden store at the Select Citywalk shopping centre in Delhi, a company statement said that the women-focused media platform plans to open four more such outlets across malls in the next three months to retail its private-label and licensed merchandise.

“Producing private-label merchandise is a natural progression for us as a content company. We use data and inputs from our most popular articles, videos and social memes to design products that millennials love,” said Priyanka Gill, co-founder and CEO, Luxeva.

By harnessing data insights to determine what POPxo’s target demographic is looking to buy, POPxo launched its own e-commerce label last year. The e-commerce label and retail outlet will feature POPxo’s collection of bags, notebooks, laptop sleeves and other lifestyle products designed by its in-house team.

POPxo will launch skincare and fashion products in June 2019, a company statement said.

The Delhi-based online media content platform says that it has over 39 million monthly active users across all platforms.

A year after its founding in 2013 by Namrata Bostrom and Priyanka Gill, the digital publication secured Rs 3 crore from a group of investors which included Rajan Anandan, Mithun Sancheti, Chris Mathias, Tej Lalvani and Hoxton Ventures.

In late 2015, it raised $2 million in its Series A round of funding led by IDG Ventures India and Kaalari Capital.

In its Series B round of funding undertaken in 2017, Japanese venture capital firm GREE Ventures along with existing investors IDG and Kaalari invested $2.7 million.

Last April, Chinese consumer electronics company Oppo and South Korea-based Neoplux Technology Fund, among others, invested $5.52 million. At the time, Gill had stated the platform’s intent to consolidate commerce as a strong revenue stream by harnessing the funds garnered.