Calcutta Angels Network forays into fashion space with seed funding for Purple Style Labs

Sidharth Pansari, President CAN, said, “This is the first investment in the fashion space for CAN. We are hopeful that this investment will benefit Purple Style Labs, the budding designers and small fashion brands to develop a pan-India market”. 

Purple Style Labs Pvt Ltd (PSL), founded in Aug 2015 by Abhishek Agarwal, an IIT-Bombay graduate and ex-banker with Deutsche, operates on two unique propostions - on one hand they provide professional support to individual desinger brands and on the other, help customers with one-stop solution to buying and styling needs.

With funding support from Calcutta Angels Network, Lets Venture and individuals from IITB and banking network of the founder, PSL has been able to raise nearly rupees three crore, which the company expects to infuse to grow its team of trendy designer and stylists as well as upgrade technology.

CAN closed this fund-raising round in a record time of a month under the able leadership of Rahul Kayan (President Elect, CAN) and Nikhil Golcha (Member, CAN).

Rahul Kayan said, “CAN is happy with this association. We believe, that the promoters have in them what it takes to reach great heights. This project has a huge potential and will go a long way. CAN is ever-ready to support these fresh and unique ideas.”

PSL's aspiration to be the biggest fashion house of India managing multiple designer brands in the premium, luxury as well as affordable retail segment coupled with its expertise to make their aspirations come true has encouraged investors to fund them.

Realising that a lot of individual designer brands lack business acumen in reaching their true potential, PSL aims to fill this vacuum by providing them the much-needed professional support in terms of technology, marketing, strategy and operations while they can focus on the product and consumer.

Since inception PSL has integrated over 30 designers and stylists under their management across eight cities in India and has achieved 300 per cent annual growth for the designers.

It combines designing and styling on a single platform to provide unique experience to end consumers.

Talking about their maiden funding round, Abhishek Agarwal said, “We believe that an idea can scale in the Indian ecosystem without losing the path to profitability only when it gets the right guidance from people who have. historically, created businesses in India. And we have been successful in bringing the right set of investors to guide us for the journey.”

According to Nikhil Golcha, “Purple Labs is addressing the pain points of the players with a focus on backend logistics, integration and customer contact. If done correctly, this business solution can set new trends for the future.”

PSL has also recently on boarded senior executives, Nabeela Moinuddin (Ex- Deloitte, Vistaprint) and Nishank Gupta (Ex- Housing, Urban Clap).

ABOUT CAN

Calcutta Angels Network (CAN) is a platform for entrepreneurs and investors to come on board to create an enabling environment for angel investments, mentorship and guidance. It is the first structured platform of this kind in Eastern India. The Network, now poised to become one of India’s largest regional Angel Network platforms, has taken the leadership to develop the start-up eco system across eastern India. CAN has established associations with premier angel networks, accelerators, incubators and institutes for knowledge sharing, deal flow sharing and co-investments. CAN has taken a step ahead, creating robust systems and processes which will be of immense benefit to investors and start-ups which in turn will make CAN the first port of call for any start up seeking investment from this part of the country.

Image: Purple Style Labs website