Former Zomato executive Gupta will lead the business as CEO, while Bansal will remain away from operations. The fashion firm will initially focus on offline play in the luxury women’s wear fashion market, before expanding into other lifestyle areas later.
Mohit Gupta, a former Zomato executive, and Mukesh Bansal, the creator of Myntra, raised $26 million in initial funding for their omnichannel fashion business Lyskraft, making it one of the largest early-stage deals for an Indian startup amid the continuing funding constraint.
Peak XV Partners, formerly Sequoia Capital India, led the round, according to Gupta, who added that the seed money will help the partnership move forward with its plan to build an omnichannel play as a marketplace for premium brands, beginning with women’s fashion and eventually expanding into other lifestyle categories.
This round’s other investors included global IT investor Prosus, Belgian investment fund Sofina, and DST Global partners. According to Gupta, Deep Kalra and Rajesh Magow from Makemytrip, as well as Deepinder Goyal, founder of Zomato, participated in the financing.
Gupta will be the CEO of Lyskraft, headquartered in Gurgaon, while Bansal will serve as a strategic advisor and shareholder. He will have no operational responsibilities at the firm.
Bansal, who cofounded fashion ecommerce company Myntra and fitness startup Cultfit, is currently working on his own deep tech, artificial intelligence startup, according to sources.
When Gupta and Bansal teamed up a year ago, the plan was for Meraki Labs, Bansal’s startup incubator, to look into raising cash at the holding company level as well as raising funding for other firms inside its portfolio. Bansal has backed startups such as Groww, a stock brokerage firm, and Skyroot Aerospace, a space technology venture.
On Lyskraft, Gupta stated that the premiumization theme, which is visible across consumer categories, prompted him and Bansal to target the upper end of the market for the endeavor.
According to him, the premium fashion market in India has to be approached differently since it will grow to a size that will allow it to be viewed as a vertical over the course of the next five to ten years. “Specifically, within this, women’s fashion is a particularly hard category, and we think that the solution to that is not only online or offline but omnichannel, and that’s what we have set out to build.”
According to Gupta, Lyskraft has signed on 15 brands in the luxury women’s apparel segment and will not manufacture its own.
The startup will compete with Nykaa Fashion, which operates both online and offline, as well as pure digital rivals like Flipkart-owned Myntra, Reliance Retail’s Ajio, and Tata Cliq.
Gupta stated that Lyskraft’s present addressable market is a few billion dollars, but he expects it to rise to $12-15 billion in six to seven years.
