Nagaram’s new venture — a fast fashion platform for Gen Z, is likely to be valued at $150-160 million after the investment, these people said. Nagaram, who left Flipkart-owned Myntra last December as its chief executive, is expected to launch the venture later this month and has named it Virgio — housed under Ameyam Enterprises.
Currently, the app is in beta testing with users being put on a waitlist before a formal launch.
ET reported in January that Alpha Wave (formerly Falcon Edge) and Accelhad finalised their $25-30 million round at a $100 million valuation. Prosus Ventures‘s investment is also part of series A funding but the round is structured in multiple tranches and is Prosus is coming in at a higher valuation than earlier investors did.
“The first round is structured in multiple tranches like series A1, A2 and so on. Prosus Ventures is in the last leg of signing the deal. While the platform will be launched soon, it’s fetched a valuation of over $150 million with Prosus round,” one of the people briefed on the matter said. With Prosus Ventures coming in at Virgio, the round size may increase by around $10 million.
This comes at a time when there is a visible slowdown in deal making at attractive terms across all stages. Once formally announced, it will be one of the biggest maiden institutional funding rounds for a new venture.
Nagaram declined to comment. A spokesperson for Prosus Ventures said it does not comment on market rumours and speculation.
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Mukesh Bansal, founder of Cultfit and president at Tata Digital is also an investor in the firm, as ET previously reported.
Nagaram’s Virgio is being seen as ‘Shein of India’ by people who have reviewed its plans and are aware of the goings-on at the firm.Virgo is expected to focus on customisation of consumer needs for fashion products. It will rely on the consumer-to-manufacturing model. “Virgio app stands for the dawn of a new brand of social commerce,” according to the description on its website.
“It’s similar to Shien from India with a lot of focus on technology. They are trying to have a go at demand-based manufacturing of fast fashion. The trends are changing fast and the idea is to address this demand among Gen Z and new-age consumers – who are also really young,” one of the people mentioned above said.
Shein had become popular in India but had to shut its operations here last year following a ban by the government as part of a broader crackdown on Chinese apps.
Before starting Virgio, Nagaram worked at Flipkart for almost seven years before moving to Myntra in 2019. He was elevated to CEO at the fashion etailer after its previous chief executive Anath Narayanan quit following Walmart’s acquisition of Flipkart in 2018.
