[Funding alert] IAN and angel investors back fashion tech startup StyleDotMe

Delhi-based real time AR fashion tech startup StyleDotMe has raised a bridge round of funding led by IAN investors Ambarish Raghuvanshi (ex CFO – Infoedge), Ajay Gupta (Head – Strategy and Marketing, Ericsson India), Deval Tibrewalla (CEO- Polo Towers Group), Hari Balasubramanian, Rajan Anandan, Dr. Saurabh Srivastava and Raman Roy.

Other angel investors including Innov8 founder Dr. Ritesh Malik; Rohit Chanana (ex President Strategy and Finance Hero Corporate), Josh Talks founder Supriya Paul and Shobhit Banga also participated in this round.

StyleDotMe will use the funding to bolster its operations, strengthen its team, and drive its presence across the country by getting more clients on board. The company will also utilise the funding to launch its B2C product for the global market which will allow people to comfortably try jewellery from their homes using mirrAR patented Augmented Reality tech.

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Speaking on the announcement, Meghna Saraogi, Co-founder at StyleDotMe said,

“Jewellery retail in India is an extremely fragmented market. The majority of stores are single stores across the country, with only a handful of regional brands having multiple outlets across states and catering to a pan-India consumer base. Through mirrAR, we will help every jewellery store across the world to enhance the customer experience and ultimately their brand presence. We are delighted to have received the support of IAN investors. This round is an important step in towards our global aspirations."

Co-founded by Meghna Saraogi and Akhil Tolani in 2016, StyleDotMe is known for using its cutting edge augmented reality product mirrAR, to transform jewellery shopping experiences to consumers. mirrAR allows people virtually try on things via augmented reality (AR) on digital platforms of client brands, via iPads. Users can see themselves in different jewellery products on a larger screen, and can take pictures and share on social media too.

Currently, StyleDotMe works with over 60 retailers in 17 cities across India including Tanishq, PC Jewellers,  Amrapali, Farah Khan and many more. In 2019, Tanishq and mirrAR by StyleDotMe collaborated towards a zero inventory experience zone set up at the Delhi and Bangalore airports. The tech provides rich user insights to the jeweler not known before using data analytics and artificial intelligence. This allows a retailer to optimise his/her entire value chain across design, manufacturing, operations, marketing and sales.

Speaking on the investment, lead IAN investor, Ambarish Raghuvanshi commented,

"It is gratifying to see StyleDotMe evolve from a feature to a full-fledged business efficiency tool over two years. They now solve a real, difficult problem for jewellery stores, that is the pain associated with trying out multiple items for customers and the economic costs of carrying inventory. With insight of this sort, they can migrate to creating deep use cases in other industries. Like most successful start-ups they have also been tested with making one or two pivots before arriving at this solution. We are extremely pleased to back Meghna and her colleagues at StyleDotMe.”

By 2020, the company aims to be present in all prominent Tier 1, 2 & 3 cities across the country. In 2016, it had raised a seed round from Indian Angel Network. Ajay Gupta led this round of investment on behalf of IAN.

According to the startup, the market size of the Indian jewellery industry is stated to be $75 billion as of 2018, whereas it is predicted to grow to $100 billion by 2025.

Also Read: Meghna Saraogi shows how learning every step of the way counts