Casual Footwear Brand Solethreads Raises $3.7 Million In Series A Funding The company plans to utilize the fund raised to enhance its design innovation lab and the R&D centre to strengthen its launch pipeline and explore new categories in the casual footwear space

Solethreads, a Gurugram-based casual footwear brand, announced that it has raised $3.7 million in Series A funding from new and existing investors. Fireside Ventures led the round as a new investor and the round also saw participation from existing investors i.e. DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital along with the Angel investors - Nihir Nalin Parikh and Dhaval Nalin Parikh. The company plans to utilize the funds raised to enhance its design innovation lab and the R&D centre to strengthen its launch pipeline and explore new categories in the casual footwear space.

"Solethreads was launched with an objective to offer the best casual footwear designs and innovations to the customers. The footwear industry has been dominated by global brands and Solethreads aims to be the brand built in India for the world. Our First brand outlet in Mumbai is using technology to make it India's first Phygital Casual footwear store thereby being the disruptor in the industry. The funding will facilitate our expansion into new categories, further enhance our innovation capabilities and fuel our geographical footprint," said Sumant Kakaria, CEO and co-founder.

Currently, the brand claims that it has a strong omnichannel presence in more than 600 MBOs through distributors and in large retail formats. Solethreads aims to close the financial year with a presence in more than 1000 Multi Brand Outlets and aspires to be among the top 3 Casual footwear brands in the semi-premium category on e-commerce marketplaces, it said.

"Footwear is an enormous albeit highly competitive category and we believe Solethreads is uniquely positioned to capture the untapped opportunity in the casual footwear segment. With a key focus on design, product innovation, and a unique offline-to-online distribution strategy, we are excited to partner with the Solethreads team as they look to build the next footwear behemoth from India," said Vinay Singh, co-founder, Fireside Ventures.

Solethreads was co-founded in 2020 by Gaurav Chopra, Sumant Kakaria, Aprajit Kathuria and Vikram Iyer. The startup is a design-led casual footwear brand also focused on comfort and sustainability with a comprehensive line of sneakers, flip flops, slides and other unique categories in the casual footwear space.