Fashion talent platform 6Degree secures $400K from IAN, TAN Advisors

Fashion startup 6Degree has raised $4,00,000 in a pre-Series A round of funding led by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and TAN Advisors. The proceeds will be deployed towards team expansion, technology up gradation and fortifying reach of the company.

With this round, the Mumbai-based company eyes to create a 360-degree fashion platform, the company said in a press statement. This is the second round of funding for 6Degree from IAN.

The brainchild of  Nikhil Hegde and Amit Bhardwaj in 2014, 6Degree lets fashion professionals showcase their talent across the globe and helps them to connect with fashion community.

It also provides end to end portfolio services ranging from conceptualization to execution. Previously in 2016, the startup had raised $200,000 from IAN including an undisclosed amount in seed round from centre for incubation and business acceleration (CIBA).

Fashion professionals and students can create profiles, upload projects and promote their work to others on the platform and get noticed. The company has a partnership with several fashion events such as Lakme Fashion Week, Fiji Fashion Week, Mysore Fashion Week and Fashion Forward Duba among others.

Also read: Why majority of fashion-focused online companies failed to make a mark

6Degree claims that it made Rs 3.1 crore revenue in 2017 fiscal and aspiring to hit Rs 5 crore revenue mark in the current fiscal. At present, it competes with Fashion GPS, Talenthouse, Voonik among others.

A quick look at online fashion space

So far, none of the fashion-focused companies (except Myntra) have done well in India. Fashionandyou, Zovi, YepMe, and Freecultr are dead while Craftsvilla has made three pivots since its inception in 2011.

Voonik is currently pivoting for the fifth time and exploring offline channel to gain ground in tier II and III cities. Roposo is relentlessly trying to find right business proposition. Last year, it made its third pivot to become a social network.

Meanwhile, funding in online fashion space has been experiencing an all-time low in the last three years. Investment into niche online fashion has plunged to $39.5 million so far, this year from $350 million in 2015 and $126 million last year, as per data from research platform Tracxn.