Workwear brand FableStreet raises $3 mn round led by Fireside Ventures

Fable Street Lifestyle Solutions, a Delhi-based startup that retails premium workwear brand FableStreet, has raised about $3 million in a Series A round led by Fireside Ventures. 

Pradeep Parameswaran, president at Uber India and South Asia, Dilip Khandelwal, managing director and technology head at Deutsche Bank, and Suhail Sameer, CEO at RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group (FMCG), participated in the round.

The capital will be used for market expansion, including establishing an offline presence in the coming months, adding product categories and hiring senior professionals the company said in a statement. 

I also plans to invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning to build a customer recommendation engine, strengthen product development and set up a technology enabled efficient supply chain.  

FableStreet claims to operate a data-backed proprietary algorithm for sizing that requires the customer to provide three body measurements online to extrapolate the remaining measurements to 95% accuracy and build a custom-fit garment.  

FableStreet had last raised an undisclosed sum in a seed round in 2017 from angel investors including fashion designer Harmeet Bajaj, Unilever vice president Pameela Pattabiraman, Fusiontech Ventures and other investors from the consumer, retail and technology sectors.

FableStreet counts the likes of Marks & Spencer, Massimo Dutti and Zara amongst others in the premium workwear category as its competitors. It operates in what it said is an over $1.2 billion workwear industry.

“We believe that personalization and technology-driven business models will be the new frontrunners in the consumer segment and are pleased to support Ayushi and her vision to provide quality and premium workwear to women,” Dipanjan Basu, partner and CFO at Bengaluru-based venture capital firm Fireside said. Basu will join FableStreet’s board. 

An omnichannel approach isn’t unheard of in the online fashion retail business. Marketplace models including the likes of Myntra, Voonik and Limeroad have diversified to a brick-and-mortar presence in a move viewed to deliver better customer attraction and therefore higher revenues. Last month, online fashion rental platform Rent It Bae merged with Mumbai-based fashion rental startup Flyrobe to expand its omnichannel footprint.

Offline retail is doing considerably well in the age of ecommerce, according to the findings of Bengaluru-based SaaS provider Capillary Technologies. Consumer loyalty, however, remained a major concern for offline retail stores, it said in a report titled ‘The 2019 Festive Shopping.’

Recent deals in the sector

In November, Sensedynamic Fashions India, a Bengaluru-based startup that owns fast-fashion ecommerce startup Styched, raised an undisclosed amount in a seed funding round from angel investors.

In October, Kanvas Consultancy, a Mumbai-based startup that owns the personal styling and ecommerce platform StyleCracker, raised $2 million in a seed round from US-based venture capital fund AMJ Ventures. This is the largest amount the company has raised in a single funding round.