Bombay Shirt Company raises $8 mn from Lightbox

With this, the total capital raised so far stands at $11 million, according to a company statement.

The Mumbai-based company started as an online customized shirt brand in 2012, with an initial funding of ₹7 lakh and claims to be one of the market leaders in the custom apparel space, with 16 stores across India, Dubai, and New York.

In the long-term, the startup aims at re-imagining customer journey in an offline and online setting and creating a tech-led, omni-channel experience.

According to Akshay Narvekar, founder of Bombay Shirt: “The apparel industry is ripe for disruption. The trend of ‘fast fashion’ has caused reckless consumption which leads to a host of negative externalities. We at Bombay Shirt Company aim to propagate the notion of slow fashion – a much more careful and considered way to consume apparel. Our focus is on personalizing the journey for every customer by producing garments unique to them, while ensuring zero inventory and wastage; implementing this through advanced automation. With this funding, we aim to change the way the industry runs and make this the new status quo for apparel."

Besides automating the brand’s production and supply chain, the company will use the funds to expand into horizontal products such as trousers, denim and other categories in the menswear space and expand the brand’s physical footprint even deeper. “While the format of the stores will be re-envisioned, the number of touch points aim to increase to between 40-50, over the next 18 months" added Narvekar.

Narvekar, who had worked with BCBG Max Azria, apparel and accessories collection line, and Everstone Capital, a private equity firm, initially started Bombay Shirt Company following the business model of US-based online ventures like J. HilBurn and Indochino.

The startup competes with the likes of Raymond Made to Measure, a company owned by the Raymond Group.

The size of made-to-measure apparel market in India is undefined. The entire apparel market is projected to touch $200 billion by 2025 from around $45 billion in 2014, according to a study by consulting firm Wazir Advisors.