Excl: Premium lifestyle e-tailer Rock.in raises Series A funding led by VC firm Partech

Mumbai- based Rock In Fashions Pvt Ltd, which runs premium e-commerce site for apparel and accessories Rock.in, has raised an undisclosed Series A funding led by Partech International, a venture capital firm based in France & Silicon Valley and chasing early & mid-stage investment opportunities in internet services, e-commerce, social and digital media.

Paris-headquartered Partech International has $650 million under active management, focusing on the US and European investments. It leads or co-leads institutional rounds, investing up to $12 million over the life of a company.

Rock.in has operational licences from 120 international brands from Europe and the US, including La Redoute, House of Dereon, Calvin Klein, DKNY, Marc Cain, FCUK, Fever London, Just Cavalli and more.

The money raised is utilised for setting up operations in India, bringing new brands to the platform and building the team. The startup is also investing in logistics, customer care, editorial content, marketing and technology.

Talking exclusively to Techcircle.in, Rock.in co-founder and COO Aashish Puri said, "We target educated, well-travelled individuals who aspire to wear well-fitted clothes with great designs."

Currently a team of 40, Rock.in will scale it up to 75 by the end of this year and will eventually set up offices in Delhi and Bangalore. According to the e-tailer, it has an average basket size of Rs 3,000 and is getting up to 25,000 hits every day, of which 0.3-0.5 per cent translates into business. This means around 60-70 orders per day, implying gross sales value of as much as Rs 1.8 lakh daily or around Rs 50 lakh a month.

Launched in the middle of May 2012, Rock.in was founded by Aashish Puri and Suraj Sharma. An MS in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology, Puri had previously worked with Shore Consulting, Gemalto, Partech International and Sofinnova Partners.

Sharma had earlier set up companies like Emarket.com, a B2B online trading exchange for FMCG products that enables manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers across Europe to connect and trade physical stock online and in real time. He also runs Knight Carter Ltd, a specialist recruitment consultancy, which recruits exclusively for financial services, professionals, FMCG and the IT sectors across the UK, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) countries, Asia and Australia.

With one warehouse in Mumbai, Rock.in works on a delivery time of 10 days for products shipped from abroad and 24-48 hours for products already available in India. It is currently delivering to 90 cities and, interestingly, claims that 50 per cent of the business comes from tier II and tier III cities.

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(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)