Ahmedabad based fashion and apparel brand for men, Barcelona plans to expand its retail footprint to approximately 400 stores across 150 cities in India in the next two years. It also aims to open family stores featuring women’s and kid’s segments and wants presence and sales points in 80% of tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
Anticipating an increasing demand from menswear from these geographies, Barcelona has roped in Bollywood actor Sonu Sood as its brand ambassador to create a buzz. The business has partnerships with XYXX for the inner wear market and Khadim for the footwear category in its stores.
The brand had also recently raised Rs 5 crore equity-free capital from GetVantage, India’s leading non-dilutive funding marketplace and growth platform. The funds raised from GetVantage will be used to open stores across India. It has even filed for an IPO and has been growing at a CAGR of 7.6% and has closed FY 23 with a topline of Rs 175 crore.
Jaimin Gupta, Managing Director, Barcelona said, “Our vision is to build India’s largest retail network of multi-brand outlets through our men’s Fashion brand Barcelona and we are quite close to attaining that target. Businesses like us are capital intensive and we are constantly looking for equity-free and collateral-free working capital. Fortunately, revenue-based finance in India is gaining popularity and helping SMEs like us grow exponentially.”
“We have seen a massive spurt in our business after raising funds from GetVantage. We got funds in just a few days without any hassle. Such alternate finance helps us to focus on our business instead of chasing funds,” he added.
Barcelona was founded in 2015 by Gupta and is an initiative of Stitched Textiles Private Limited. It has over 130 exclusive brand outlets (EBOs) in 70+ cities in the country and also operates a B2B app to create a single brand to retailer channel, where the stock is sold wholesale to apparel retailers.
They claim to have over 7,000 garment retailers registered on the app and are aiming to onboard 1 lakh retailers in FY 24.
The brand further claims that the top line of company in 2022-23 was Rs 190 crore and is the most affordable fashionable brand leading in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
~ With inputs from Karan Nangia for IMAGES Business of Fashion
