The story of Fashinza is of three friends, Abhishek Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Jamil Ahmad, who embarked on a retail journey in February 2020, to impart fair trade practices and accountability in the apparel business. Since success comes with attitude, Fashinza quietly grew as the most sought-after B2B marketplace and real-time global supply chain for fashion brands and retailers.

Today, Fashinza has evolved to become a global player with footprints in the US, Dubai, Bangladesh and India. Plus, the company is registering almost a three-fold rise in its revenue.

Strategic Expansion

In a couple of months into business, Fashinza boarded some 30-odd Indian brands, which were selling on Flipkart, Myntra and the like. Later, the trio thoughtfully started widening Fashinza’s market. In the first quarter of 2021, Fashinza made its international foray by entering the Dubai market. The company focused on the Middle East market before entering the US and European markets by the end of 2021 fiscal year. In Sharma’s words, “Today, the US market is well established for us.”

Fashinza works with over 150 brands in three geographies. Besides the US, the company plans to move on to the UK and European markets in a big way.

Profiteering Part

Fashinza charges its suppliers a usage based fee on every order, while providing value-added services like logistics, fintech and B2B payments to both brands and manufacturers.

Sharma, who has worked with companies like Flipkart and Limeroad, is an expert at saving costs by enhancing the unit economics on the supply side. Fashinza engages in leveraging unutilised capacities, while improving production efficiency through tech and data.

Funds Galore

Under the strategic leaderships of the trio, Fashinza raised USD 12.5 million in February 2020 as seed capital and another USD 12.5 million in January 2021. In May 2022, it raised a whopping US$ 100 million in Series B funding (US$ 60 million in equity and US$ 40 million in debt) co-led by Prosus Ventures and Westbridge, with participation from Accel, Elevation and ADQ at a USD 300 billion valuation.

The funds raised are being utilised towards strengthening its core activities like refining the company’s supply chain technology, expanding into new territories, raw material procurement, among others.

The US Radar

Earlier the share from international markets used to be miniscule - around 15-20 per cent. However, it has crossed 40 per cent (the US and the Middle East). Our plan is to collect atleast 70 per cent revenue from international markets i.e. 50 per cent from the US alone, 20 per cent from the Middle East and Europe and the remaining 30 per cent from India.

Our vision is to make Fashinza the number one player, which the world relies on for outsourcing garments from India, Sharma envisaged.

WINNER: Abhishek Sharma

Role: Co-founder and COO

Age: 35 Years

Sector: B2B Tech Retail