The Souled Store raises Rs 135 Cr from Xponentia Capital and others

Lifestyle brand The Souled Store has raised Rs 135 crore in a Series C round led by Xponentia Capital with participation from existing backers Elevation Capital and RPSG Capital, who increased their shareholding in the company.

The company will utilize the fresh capital for expanding into new categories and launch over  100 stores pan India within the next 2 years, The Souled Store said in a statement.  The investment will also be used to offer a buyback of 100% of vested employee options (ESOPs).

Previously, the decade old firm had raised Rs 75 crore ($10 million) in its Series B round led by Elevation Capital in August 2021. The company was bootstrapped for the initial five years until receiving seed funding from RP-SG Ventures in November 2018.

The Souled Store designs, manufactures and retails apparel products with designs ranging around pop-culture themes such as superheroes, movies and TV shows. 

The platform claims to have partnered with over 150 franchisees and its product portfolio includes t-shirts, mobile covers, badges, boxers, notebooks, mugs, and umbrellas among others. It also enables its users to create personalized t-shirts as well.

Co-founded by Vedang Patel, Aditya Sharma, Rohin  Samtaney, and Harsh Lal, The Souled Store claims that it is running at an annualised revenue of Rs 450 crore GMV and that 70% of the revenue comes from its own app and website — while the remaining 15% each from offline stores and online marketplaces.

The company, which has 5.5 million gen Z and millennial customers, further added that 60% of its revenue comes from outside the top 10 cities and the new offline stores will deepen its presence in tier II and III cities. 

The Souled Store's gross operating revenue inclined 82.2% to Rs 145 crore during FY22 in comparison to Rs 79.6 crore in FY21, as per the company’s annual financial statement with RoC. The firm slipped into losses and posted Rs 26.72 crore loss in FY22 against Rs 51 lakh profit in FY21. It aims to reach Rs 1500 crore in revenue over the next three years and then go public.