Excl: Future Lifestyle Fashion invests in footwear e-tailer Famozi

Future Lifestyle Fashions Ltd (FLF), housing a string of investments in lifestyle and fashion accessories domain, has made arguably one of its first bets in an e-commerce venture by investing in Eclat Lifestyle Private Ltd which runs private label footwear e-tailer Famozi, sources familiar with the development told Techcircle.in.

"We are going through the first round of PE investment in our company with Future Group, for our footwear brand Famozi. The funds mobilised shall be put to use for growing our brand presence pan- India," said Puneet Khanna, founder and director at Famozi in an email response but did not mention the amount infused in the company.

"We do not comment on industry speculations," replied a spokesperson of Future Group.

The brand is currently available only in the men's collection, but according to the website it shall be soon launching its women's collection in the market. The brand has also gone offline by launching its range through other retailers.

Famozi is also available in Singapore, Dubai and other Middle Eastern countries and will be launching in Malaysia, Pakistan and England soon.

Earlier this month, Future Group's lifestyle business housed under a new firm FLF got listed on the stock exchanges. The firm, which was created through the demerger of the lifestyle fashion businesses of Future Retail Ltd (formerly Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd) and Future Ventures India Ltd, also exited its investment in fashion apparel firm Biba Apparels Pvt Ltd. This will be its first fresh investment post listing.

FLF also counts among its investments, Clarks Future Footwear a joint venture with footwear firm Clarks. The group had also disclosed investment in another firm in the footwear business by investing in KFC Shoemaker which has footwear brands like 'Trèsmode' and 'Solovoga'. It is not clear if FLF houses this investment too.

Currently FLF has investments in brands such as Indigo Nation, Celio, Scullers, Holi and Urban Yoga, either as a joint venture or as a private investor.

Another firm in the footwear e-tailing domain is Smile Group's online shoe store Bestylish.com. The firm received an undisclosed amount in funding from ru-Net Holdings, one of the largest internet and technology investors in Russia, last year. Early this year the venture, positioned as India's Zappos, pivoted from being an e-tailer itself to a platform which helps other e-com ventures as well as offline retailers and became an online marketplace for shoes, slippers and sandals.