Fashinza helps brands reduce inventory forecasting errors and produce goods with complete transparency and minimal effort.
“We provide end-to-end apparel manufacturing solutions to fashion brands from startups to big retailers. We help brands to find the right manufacturers and then take care of the entire production process – procuring fabrics, costing, sampling, production, quality check, and delivery. Brands do not need to invest time in any task related to production once they subscribe to our services,” says Abhishek..
How it all started
Hailing from Dausa district in Rajasthan, Abhishek Sharma wanted to make a difference to the community around him by empowering small and medium entrepreneurs – the backbone of Indian economy. He wanted to do this by providing them with an ecosystem of complete transparency, and where the MSMEs get a chance to work with both national as well as international brands to earn more profits.
In 2019, when Abhishek and his friend Pawan Gupta took off on a road trip to Jaipur, they had the opportunity to see local life first-hand, and learnt some interesting insights about livelihoods . They were fascinated to learn about the number of women employed in Jaipur’s famous Indian ethnic apparel production units.
“In a country infamous for its low participation of women in employment, this industry was not only providing a livelihood, but also empowering them with self-respect. Since then, we have made it our mission to reimagine the fashion supply chain – so it works in favour of the artisans, the women, and the planet to make the world a better place,” says Abhishek.
With a strong desire to lead this change, Abhishek and Pawan, who are both serial entrepreneurs and IIT Delhi alumni, launched a tech-enabled agile manufacturing marketplace for fashion brands – Fashinza – in 2020.
Type of Start-up : Apparels
Founded Year : 2020
Location : Bangalore, Karnataka
Total Employees : 25
Founders : Abhishek Sharma and Pawan Gupta
Website : https://fashinza.com/
Mission – With Fashinza, the founders are on a mission to reimagine the fashion supply chain by blending traditional artisans’ techniques with technology-induced transparency and traceability in the supply chain.
Business Model of Fashinza.
Pawan says, “We are a highly tech driven company and are building our platform through AI technology. This helps us automate supply chain management, bring more transparency and reliability, and reduce lead times.”
Brands use Fashinza’s production platform to streamline the production process with the help of seasoned manufacturers.
The platform charges a commission from suppliers/manufacturer for providing them various services including technology, finance, and efficiency improvements.
“Presently, we are working with major international and Indian brands including 50+ industry leaders such as Forever 21, Noon.com, Reliance, Spencer’s, Bewakoof.com, Clovia, Libas, Ajio, The Souled Store, and numerous others. Our plan is to continuously grow and expand the list of our clients, serving top brands and startups alike,” explains Pawan.
Future Goals
In January 2021, the Gurugram-based startup raised a seed funding of $2.6 million led by Accel Partners and Elevation Capital with the participation of marquee individual investors – Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, co-founders of Snapdeal, and Alok Mittal, Co-founder of Indifi.
“We believe apparel exports are a supply first market and there is infinite demand for reliable supply. Our aim is to build Indian SMEs as reliable apparel manufacturing suppliers, and strengthen them both in terms of capability and capacity. We will focus more to bring demand on strengths of India manufacturing, which is primary in value addition like handwork, embroidery as well as build new capability based upon the demand in global market e.g. active wear, athleisure wear etc,” mentions Abhishek.
Last year, the startup claims to have established its presence in over 10 countries.
“We have served brands from the USA, Canada, UK, UAE, and of course India. We work with not just the largest of the retailers, but also smaller brands who are just starting up with limited investment. Our goal is to help brands with any size and scale access manufacturing very easily,” mentions Pavan.