Ninety One raises ₹225 crore in Series A funding round; valued at ₹1,000 crore

Sustainable mobility brand, Ninety One has raised ₹225 crore (or roughly $30 million) as a part of its latest Series A funding, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

The round saw A91 Partners LLP infusing around ₹160 crore, with participating investors including Fireside Ventures, Avaana Capital and Tital Capital infusing another ₹65 crore in the company.

With this funding round, Ninety One, operated by AlphaVector (India) Pvt. Ltd. is now valued at ₹1,000 crore (or roughly $132 million).

According to the company, it will use the proceeds from the current funding round to invest in manufacturing facilities in Gujarat, and build out its electric cycle portfolio. The brand will also look to expand into the global markets.

As a part of the round A91 Partners’ VT Bharadwaj, Fireside Venture’s Vinay Singh and Avaana Capital’s Sandeep Singhal will join the startup's board of directors.

Six-year old, Ninety One is a direct-to-consumer (D2C) cycling brand that manufacturers and sells cycles for enthusiasts, looking for adventure sports and urban mobility needs. Currently, the brand follows an omnichannel retail play, and has an offline dealer presence through the 91CARES programme.

“At Ninety One, our focus has always been on disrupting the bicycle and electric cycles category through engineering-led product innovation and a deep brand connect with our consumers. The current funding round will help us catalyse growth multi-fold as we use the capital to deepen our supply chain, strengthen our distribution channels and build our brand story,” said Sachin Chopra, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Ninety One.

At present, the startup is clocking sales of over 20,000 bicycles per month and has a presence across 1,000 retail points in over 500 cities and a million monthly unique visitors on its online platform.

“We are excited to back Ninety One as a pioneering new age Indian active lifestyle brand that can truly deliver world-class products to global consumers. Ninety One has out-innovated competition in bicycles and electric cycles and emerged as a strong brand with deep distribution backed by solid manufacturing capabilities," said VT Bharadwaj, general partner, A91 Partners LLC.

Ninety One has witnessed its monthly revenues grow by fivefold, it said.

The brand claims that over 80% of its sales come from the men category currently. However, through research and engineering efforts the brand is looking to bolster its play in the kids and women category. It expects these categories to contribute 50% of its sales over the next two years.