25 October 2022, Mumbai:
Aditya Birla Fashion Retail is all set to buy majority stakes in three startups. These are Urbano Fashion, Pratyaya E-Commerce, and Awesomefab Shopping.
Aditya Birla is taking steps towards creating one of India’s largest portfolios of disruptor brands in the fashion and lifestyle industry. Urbano Fashion based in Hyderabad offers jeans, T-shirts, shirts, trousers, track pants, shorts, and winter wear for both men and women.
Pratyaya E-Commerce markets its offerings under the brand name Nobero, a fast-fashion apparel supplier. Awesomefab Shopping sells its products through its portal Veirdo. Fashion commerce startup Veirdo was launched in 2016 to offer trendy and affordable clothing to young men.
By 2019, it expanded to launch a womenswear brand, Juneberry, to make the most of the rise in female fashion shoppers in India. It offers more than 300 designs spanning more than 1,500 stock-keeping units, and several apparel categories.
Aditya Birla Fashion Retail has been otherwise widening its portfolio of brands, both by acquiring licenses for international brands in India as well as investing in homegrown ethnic wear labels. This has helped the retailer move beyond the formal men’s clothing segment.
In January 2022 it took a 51 percent stake in House of Masaba Lifestyle. In 2021 it signed a long-term licensing pact to exclusively sell Reebok products in India and other ASEAN countries.
