Exclusive: Lead Angels, others back personal shopping and styling platform StyleNook

Personal shopping and styling platform StyleNook has raised an undisclosed amount in seed round from Lead Angels, Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs and other high networth individuals (HNI), a top company official told TechCircle.

The Mumbai-based company will utilise the capital to build out artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and expand its merchandising team. 

The company was founded in 2016 by big data and analytics professional Kuntal Malia and Arti Gupta, former COO of kidswear retail platform Hopscotch. The platform connects users to a personal stylist for a fee and delivers a curated box of clothes and accessories picked by the stylist based on personalised measurements and preferences. 

“StyleNook as a brand, philosophically takes a very different consumer-focused stand. We are creating a way to marry the convenience of requesting a box at a click, the uniquely affordable and rare opportunity to have personal stylists handpick stuff keeping in mind what will look good on you and the comfort of getting the trial room at the doorstep to try before committing to buying,” Malia said.

The platform which is currently focused on styling ‘working women’ partners with offline and online brands to curate its selection. Users can choose to return the pieces they don’t want to keep and pay for the accepted selection.

The company leverages first party and relevant user data including the user’s body measurements, preference, life stage and requirements, to curate clothes based on feedback which are further curated by a stylist. 

“We see a great opportunity in StyleNook leveraging AI and human stylists to bring relevant clothing in terms of fitting and taste for women who are hard pressed for time. The founders’ background has allowed the company to create an ecosystem for providing a highly personalized, scalable and delightful customer experience,” said Paula Mariwala, president at Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs said on the investment.

The AI enabled platform onboards freelance stylists who can advise users remotely, using the platform’s recommendation engine. The platform claims to currently have 50,000 users, a 50% repeat rate and average order value of Rs 1,800.

“Upcoming fashion brands will benefit from the data points and feedbacks captured by StyleNook in creating clothing that customers want and hence dynamically cater to changing demand patterns,” said Sushanto Mitra, CEO at Lead Angels.

The business overlaps with some of the curated shopping platforms including Tiger Global Management backed Roposo which started out as an influencer-led styling platform and pivoted to short video content. Roposo was acquired by advertising technology platform InMobi in 2019. Fynd, previously Shopsense, started out as a curated platform and later pivoted to a full-stack ecommerce app. Fynd was acquired by Reliance in August 2019.  

In the US, San Francisco based Stitch Fix provides personal styling services and went public in 2017.