The co-founders of Trase, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) footwear brand, Jitin Goel and Dhruv Gupta, have reacquired the brand from the roll-up company Upscalio. This strategic move was followed by a $500K angel round led by investors like Deep Bajaj and Mohit Bajaj, co-founders of Sirona Hygiene, as revealed by the brand’s co-founders.
Other investors who participated in the round include Shiven Malhotra, the founder of Strategic Investments by Design (SID), Vikas Gautam, CEO & Head of International Business at Aditya Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company, and Rohit Jain, former CEO of WTW.
The co-founders asserted that these funds will be utilized as working capital for team building, inventory management, and marketing purposes.
Founded in 2016, Trase achieved an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of INR 18 crore by 2020, all while operating as a bootstrapped venture. In 2021, it became part of Upscalio’s acquisition strategy aimed at creating a diversified portfolio of brands in utility categories.
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“We sought a partner capable of assisting us in achieving a revenue milestone of INR 100 crore, leading us to form this partnership with Upscalio,” stated the co-founders.
As Upscalio shifted its focus from shoes to home and kitchen products, the founders and new investors reached an agreement to sell the footwear brand.
Even while Trase performed well while being managed by Upscalio, it did not fit into our long-term plan. The CEO of Upscalio, Gautam Kshatriya, stated, “We are happy to return it to its founders & new investors, who are well-positioned to grow the brand further.”
Before Covid, the brand was handling 2,000 orders per day and generating INR 14 crore in revenue annually, with a profitability ranging between 12-15 percent.
“Over the next 3 years, our goal is to achieve INR 100 crore in revenue, aiming for a 100 percent year-on-year growth. We project closing this fiscal year with INR 25 crore in revenue, reaching INR 50 crore by FY 25-26, and hitting INR 100 crore by FY 26-27,” stated Goel and Gupta.
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“Additionally, we anticipate reaching a monthly revenue of at least INR 1 crore until July, thereby enabling us to capitalize on sales during the latter half of the year,” they elaborated.
Currently, the brand provides a selection of 2,000 SKUs comprising comfortable footwear options for women and children.
“We believe that 75% of our revenue for the current fiscal year will come from the women’s segment, with the remaining 25 percent attributed to the children’s segment,” they said.
In addition to retailing on its own direct-to-consumer website and through marketplaces, the company plans to establish shop-in-shops this fiscal year to expand into the offline sector.
“We will start by testing the Delhi NCR area for offline retail. Co-founders stated, “By the end of this fiscal year, we anticipate that our D2C website will generate 25% of our revenue, marketplaces will account for 65%, and offline space will contribute the remaining 10%.”
The brand, with a focus on a purpose-driven approach, intends to donate one pair of shoes to the underprivileged for every 10 pairs sold.
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