Footwear brand Yoho, which was launched in 2021 with 3 SKUs, will be investing Rs 4 crore to set up its manufacturing unit with a 2 lakhs unit per day manufacturing capacity in Bahadurgarh, Haryana, Prateek Singhal, co-founder, Yoho told ETRetail.
Initially, the brand will begin operations with 30,000 shoes per day and will gradually scale it to 2 lakh units per day.
“The upcoming unit, which will be opening early coming FY, will be supporting our R&D and focusing on producing soles and assembling sneakers,” he asserted.
“China exports USD 70 billion of footwear, whereas India exports only USD 3 billion. Even smaller countries like Bangladesh export around USD 9 billion, and Vietnam exports around USD 17 billion of footwear. India has the potential to grow from exporting USD 3 billion worth of footwear to USD 20 billion in the next 5 years. So, this manufacturing unit will give us an edge to export in the future,” he further added.
The brand, which has developed Foot Pharma Foot Pad, an alternative to memory foam that retains shock absorption for up to 1.5 years, boasts of 60 SKUs currently with a presence across 3 categories slippers, loafers, and sneakers.
At present, the brand is present across 500 touchpoints across India through 14 distributors and is planning to enter the MBOs with Reliance Footprints over the next 2-3 months.
“Initially, we will be going live with 25 stores of Reliance Footprints and then we will expand it to 100 by March 2026,” he asserted.
“At present, 65 per cent of our revenue comes from marketplaces, 25 per cent is contributed by our website and the remaining 10 per cent comes from offline,” he further added.
The AOV on its D2C website stands at Rs 850 with a CAC of Rs 350. It is spending around 21 per cent on the marketing of the brand.
Over the next two months, the brand is planning to foray into international waters by expanding its presence in the Middle East and will be launching its operations in the US early next year.
Till now, the brand has raised 3 rounds of funding amounting to Rs 48 crore and is planning to raise the next round starting June.
“We are looking forward to raising Rs 100 crore in the next round by diluting another 20 per cent equity at the valuation of Rs 500 crore and will be dedicating Rs 5 crore more towards the manufacturing unit,” he stated.
At present, the founders of the brand hold around 52 per cent equity and have allocated 7 per cent towards ESOPs.
“We are hoping to hit break-even in June and also expect our sales run rate to increase significantly by then,” he asserted.
The brand, which closed the last fiscal with Rs 16 crore in revenue, is planning to close this with Rs 45 crore and is planning to scale it to Rs 110 crore in the coming fiscal.
