Business-to-business (B2B) fashion marketplace Zyod has raised $18 million in a mix of equity and debt funding.
The funding was led by venture firm RTP Global, while the debt capital was raised from Stride Ventures, Trifecta Capital and Alteria Capital. The “majority” of the funding was in primary equity, cofounder Ankit Jaipuria told ET. Existing investors Lightspeed Venture also participated in the funding round.
Zyod will use the funds raised to expand its customer base to over 40 countries by the end of the fiscal year from 18 countries now, while going deeper into some current markets like the US, the UK, the Middle East Asia and Japan, Jaipuria said. The firm will also use the funds to expand the categories it sells in and strengthen its tech capabilities, to better predict supply and production gaps as well as design trends.
“Zyod leverages tech to refine every facet of the production process, right from a modular design approach to optimising operations at the factory level. We are excited to support Zyod as they expand their transformative platform internationally,” Nishit Garg, partner at RTP Global’s Asia investment team said.
Starting operations in January last year, the firm now employs about 100 people, a mix of designers, engineers, supply executives and sales executives, and is looking to expand its sales teams in international markets. It was cofounded by Jaipuria and Ritesh Khandelwal.
The company works with brands through the design to the manufacturing process, which usually begins with Zyod and the brand’s design teams working together to come up with new iterations of apparel. “One of the biggest challenges in fast fashion is inventory wastage as you have new releases every few months… we also help manage the supply side so brands can purchase smaller batches of inventory more efficiently,” Jaipuria said.
The firm is at a “double-digit million dollar” annualised revenue run-rate and is looking to grow that by three times over FY25, Jaipuria said without giving exact numbers. In the next few years, Zyod expects 80% of its business to come from international markets, he added. For the first three years, it also expects the majority of its business to come from larger enterprise clients, after which it expects to see an increase in the share of smaller, longtail clients.
Zyod supplies products to a variety of apparel brands, including Landmark Group, NEXT, Rare Rabbit, FirstCry and Allen Cooper, among others. In April last year, the firm had raised $3.5 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture.
