While the Indian fashion industry is crowded, it has plenty of opportunities and pain points to address, said Binny Bansal, founder of Increff, a Software as a Service SaaS platform for fashion retailers and merchandisers.
Binny Bansal's venture capital arm, O 21 Capital, has been backing the start-up since its initial days. In the year 2019 Increff raised $3 million from the VC firm.
Anshuman Agarwal, co-founder of Business Today, said that Bansal's advice was simple - stick to your core, go deeper and explore the global markets as well. Binny Bansal said that fashion is a trillion-dollar market where thousands of styles are created and replaced every season. He said there was no shortage of opportunities. In 2016, Increff was founded by former Myntra employees - Rajul Jain and Anshuman Agarwal - along with Romil Jain. The technology platform is used to improve the efficiency of warehouses in the retail and apparel sector. Increff s name is derived from inventory efficiency, which is the underlying motive behind the start-up.
It is the Flipkart founder's experience and knowledge of the fashion and ecommerce industry that has helped the start-up across the board.
Bansal told the co-founders that if they are solving the pain points of the sector, they must add great value and that will lead to people paying them appropriately. He also gave a word of caution, urging them to stick to one segment fashion instead of expanding their offerings to other sectors as well.
He said if you try to move to other segments, you will dilute your offerings, Agarwal recalls.
This advice has been a gamechanger for Agarwal, says Agarwal. The SaaS start-up has carved a niche not only in the Indian markets but also in the international ones. The platform is deployed by several prominent fashion brands such as United Colors of Benetton, Allen Solly, Bata, ONLY, Jockey, and a few others.
Increff is backed by Sequoia Capital. Its valuation was $73 million at the time of the fundraise.
2 billion loan, claims report.