Buttercups Intimates raises funds in pre-series A round

Mumbai: Online lingerie brand Buttercups Intimates Pvt. Ltd said it has raised a pre-series A funding from online marketplace Snapdeal’s former chief product officer Anand Chandrasekaran, and its existing angel investors Kanwaljit Singh and Manoj Varghese. The company did not reveal the amount raised.

Buttercups, which operates both online and offline, plans to use the funds for expanding its product range. Pre-series A funds help start-ups survive for a brief length of time until they can arrange a larger round of financing at preferred terms.

Founded in 2013 by Arpita Ganesh, Buttercups initially crowdsourced ₹ 4 lakh from 200 women in 2014, and further raised $1 million angel investment from Kanwaljit Singh, Angie Mahtaney, Sridhar Viswanathan and Manoj Varghese in the same year.

“We have always been clear about how we want to build the business. We are a digitally native brand focusing on the quality of our products, and a great customer experience. The unique online quiz, which guarantees a perfect fit and allows us to scale beyond geographic constraints, as well as the personalised fitting rooms experience, are both results of this focus,” Ganesh said in a statement.

The company designs and manufactures its own range of lingerie.

Apart from its online presence, Buttercups has two physical stores, basically 300-400 sq. ft sized fitting rooms. Ganesh said the fitting rooms receive 15-20 women on an average per day, 90% of which converts into sales.

Buttercups receives an average of 500 orders per month of which 60% come from fitting rooms. A typical fitting room order is for ₹ 3,500 against ₹ 2,000 for a purely online order. Half of all its orders come from Bengaluru, while Delhi and Mumbai together account for another 30%.

By 2016 end, the company wants to open two more fitting rooms in Bengaluru as part of its two-year plan to have 15 fitting rooms across 10 cities in India. The firm plans to close a series A round of funding within the next four months, Ganesh said. It will also appoint a senior executive to lead operations by January.