Slikk Club Secures $3.2 Million for Instant Fashion Delivery
Bengaluru startup Slikk Club,, which provides 60-minute delivery of lifestyle and fashion products, has raised $3.2 million in a seed funding round headed by Lightspeed, with involvement from Multiply Ventures and other current investors.
The new capital will be utilized to construct additional dark stores in order to be able to service nearly 80% of the city's pincodes. Currently, it has two dark stores to service a few pincodes in Bengaluru. A portion of the funds will also be utilized to increase the team and hire for leadership positions in technology, category management, operations and supply chain.
"5-6 dark stores would be what we would like to have in a city like Bengaluru. These would be large format dark stores on expandable real estate, which can expand anywhere between 10,000-20,000 sq ft. We just keep adding the real estate in the same property as the selection and categories increase", quoted Akshay Gulati, CEO and Co-Founder, Slikk Club.
"Using machine learning we analyze and forecast what is the consumption level per sq kilometre in a city. Then we attempt to make forecasts around the population in terms of how much western wear or ethnic wear would they like to consume and then we plan our inventory accordingly", he explained.
Until now, the app provided western wear from almost 80 brands like Snitch, The Souled Store, Freakins and Bewakoof, but now it plans to expand into categories like ethnic wear, footwear, accessories and wearables, home decor, beauty and personal care. "We would like to capitalize on impulse buying by value aware customers, who desire high design but also extremely economic pricing at the same time", Gulati further added.
The business, which got started last year, is adding 2x month-on-month, with the majority of its business today resulting from repeat use. Its average order value stands at over `2,000. "The repeat and retention we've gotten, I'd say is simply seven to eight times more for traditional marketplaces today", said Gulati.
The app also provides instant returns and immediate refund to the customers but Gulati mentioned that the return percentage is much less than that of conventional marketplaces due to instant consumption. The typical e-commerce return rate is approximately 20-30% on normal marketplaces.
Though the venture is in its infancy, Gulati feels that it is simpler to become profitable in quick commerce as opposed to conventional businesses. "In fashion, being a high-margin category, availability and the type of repeats we see, we actually believe that a cracking unit economics for a company like Slikk would be far simpler", he said.
Co-founded by Om Prakash Swami (CTO), Bipin Singh (CPO) and Gulati, the startup raised $300,000 in September in its pre-seed round, led by Better Capital. Some of the prominent angel investors
are Tracxn co-founder Abhishek Goyal, Perpule Co-founder Abhinav Pathak and Saurabh Gupta, managing partner at DST Global.
The new capital will be utilized to construct additional dark stores in order to be able to service nearly 80% of the city's pincodes. Currently, it has two dark stores to service a few pincodes in Bengaluru. A portion of the funds will also be utilized to increase the team and hire for leadership positions in technology, category management, operations and supply chain.
"5-6 dark stores would be what we would like to have in a city like Bengaluru. These would be large format dark stores on expandable real estate, which can expand anywhere between 10,000-20,000 sq ft. We just keep adding the real estate in the same property as the selection and categories increase", quoted Akshay Gulati, CEO and Co-Founder, Slikk Club.
"Using machine learning we analyze and forecast what is the consumption level per sq kilometre in a city. Then we attempt to make forecasts around the population in terms of how much western wear or ethnic wear would they like to consume and then we plan our inventory accordingly", he explained.
Until now, the app provided western wear from almost 80 brands like Snitch, The Souled Store, Freakins and Bewakoof, but now it plans to expand into categories like ethnic wear, footwear, accessories and wearables, home decor, beauty and personal care. "We would like to capitalize on impulse buying by value aware customers, who desire high design but also extremely economic pricing at the same time", Gulati further added.
The business, which got started last year, is adding 2x month-on-month, with the majority of its business today resulting from repeat use. Its average order value stands at over `2,000. "The repeat and retention we've gotten, I'd say is simply seven to eight times more for traditional marketplaces today", said Gulati.
The app also provides instant returns and immediate refund to the customers but Gulati mentioned that the return percentage is much less than that of conventional marketplaces due to instant consumption. The typical e-commerce return rate is approximately 20-30% on normal marketplaces.
Though the venture is in its infancy, Gulati feels that it is simpler to become profitable in quick commerce as opposed to conventional businesses. "In fashion, being a high-margin category, availability and the type of repeats we see, we actually believe that a cracking unit economics for a company like Slikk would be far simpler", he said.
Co-founded by Om Prakash Swami (CTO), Bipin Singh (CPO) and Gulati, the startup raised $300,000 in September in its pre-seed round, led by Better Capital. Some of the prominent angel investors
are Tracxn co-founder Abhishek Goyal, Perpule Co-founder Abhinav Pathak and Saurabh Gupta, managing partner at DST Global.
