This Clothing Company Is Tailor-made For the Pandemic Fashinza is continuously expanding its network of manufacturers globally and is working with the leading brands across ten countries, with a mission to combine innovation and sustainability

It's the age of technological advancement, agility, convenience, and, above all, collaborations. The year gone by, has not been one of the best for any industry, and particularly for the fashion industry. Retail brands faced a complete halt in the business during the lockdown induced by the pandemic, manufacturers and suppliers had to stop operations in order to comply with the rules laid out by the government to contain the spread of the infection.

Well, all that has passed and now it is the time for the industry to revive and cover for the lost business and time. And making the process even smoother for both brands and manufacturers, Gurugram-based Fashinza, started by IIT-Delhi alumni Pawan Gupta and Abhishek Sharma, has introduced India's one-of-its-kind B2B platform that helps apparel and fashion brands outsource their manufacturing seamlessly, with complete transparency and reliability and in the process, helps manufacturers in their business revival process.

Fashinza is continuously expanding its network of manufacturers globally and is working with the leading brands across ten countries, with a mission to combine innovation and sustainability.

The B2B platform assumes complete ownership of tasks from design to delivery, from communicating with manufacturers to performing stringent quality checks, taking care of the entire production process which includes procuring fabrics, costing, sampling, production, quality check, and delivery, of a wide range of apparel categories such as activewear, casual wear, loungewear, heavy winterwear, denim and ethnic wear for men, women, and kids.

It offers an access to extensive catalog for all apparel categories as well as fabrics and then, brands can explore hundreds of original design options which they can produce. The brands coming on board with Fashinza can also customize their requirement and share through a techpack or choose from the catalog of apparel by selecting every detail such as fabrics, colors, prints, logos, and design of their preference. And the lead time can be as low as two weeks and can go up to 60 days depending upon the fabric, sampling requirements, etc., the company told Entrepreneur India.

A tech-enabled manufacturing company supported by 80 ethical and sustainable partner factories in India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, and backed by leading VCs, Fashinza boasts of a network of cloud-connected factories which provide complete transparency and visibility for the overall production process.

Few of the many clients of Fashinza include Forever21, Spencer's, Reliance, Bewakoof.com, Noon.com, The Souled Store, Clovia, and Libas among other brands across 10 countries.

Furthermore, the firm is aiming to grow continuously and there obviously have been advantages for brands on-boarding the platform.

Fashinza plans to expand services to New York (US) in partnership with a few leading brands.

The business model of Fashinza includes solving some of the toughest apparel supply chain challenges by helping apparel brands to work directly with manufacturers in a transparent manner, with the help of their unique digitized supply chain.

According to the company, the pandemic has caused great levels of turmoil in the global apparel industry, and the structural issues that were dependent on long lead times, high cost of operations, low efficiencies, and huge inventory problems have now been exposed.

Fashinza chief executive officer and co-founder Pawan Gupta told Entrepreneur India in a conversation that the company came about, during their trip to Jaipur in 2019, as the co-founders became acutely aware of the huge role played by women in the traditional apparel industry which flourishes in Jaipur.

"I think we knew at that moment that we wanted to positively contribute towards an industry which is possibly the greatest employment generator for women in the country. We were already familiar with the challenges faced by Indian SMEs owing to their lack of technical know-how and we wanted to create solutions for the traditional problems that trouble the apparel industry. We agreed that a digital intervention was long due and this inspired us to start Fashinza. The vision was to democratize the fashion supply chain to make it faster, more flexible, and sustainable using technology and machine learning," he said.

"The first belief that drives us is that technology can absolutely overhaul and change the fashion industry for the better. While other industries have experienced massive tech interventions, the fashion industry has somewhat lagged behind. Now is the time to change that. Secondly, we believe in having a customer-centric approach: we prioritize our clients' needs above all else which differentiates us from other service providers. So far, we have already helped more than 30 brands to launch themselves by supplying them with their very first collection. As newcomers in the industry, they were completely uninitiated and we took charge of the complete supply chain. We provided them with an all-around service that included designing, sourcing, manufacturing, quality check, and logistic support. The third belief is that the fashion industry needs to prioritize sustainability at this point. From our end, we'll always strive to make the supply chain increasingly sustainable," Gupta further added while commenting on his driving beliefs.

Its manufacturing units has been said to have spread across different parts of India including Jaipur, Tirupur, Delhi-NCR, Kolkata, etc. Besides India, they also have manufacturing bases in Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, and Turkey.

The startup has witnessed over twentyfold growth in the last 12 months and its AI-led technology platform automates everything from finding the right supplier to managing production across stakeholders.

"Before starting, Abhishek and I visited over 50 factories and over 50 brands to understand how they work, the challenges they face, and how some of them solved those challenges in their own way. We even experimented with some technology solutions at a friend's factory to measure the impact. We also looked at how the new-age brands and manufacturers in China brought agility into their setups. We did this over 9 months before starting and still continue to do this," Gupta explained while telling the kind of research that has gone into their establishment and procedures.

The company claims its innovative approach has been extremely helpful in dealing with competitors as the platform is using a tech-driven approach to solve major supply chain problems through a single platform and making the sourcing journey as easy for brands as possible.

The company recently raised Series-A funding of $20 million in a mix of equity and debt, with participation from Elevation Capital, Accel Partners, Abu Dhabi's DisruptAD, Stride Ventures, Alteria Capital, Tradecred, and Anand S Ahuja (managing director, Shahi Exports). Prior to this, it had raised $2.6 million from Accel and Elevation in 2020 as a part of its Seed funding.

"The immediate plan is to expand our global presence, particularly in the US and the Middle East. We're also onboarding more and more suppliers and hiring employees across multiple positions. In the future, we want to create a strong base of certified sustainable manufacturers and by 2030, we want to build an environmentally net positive supply chain at a scale that doesn't even cost extra," he commented while stating his future growth plans.