New Delhi: The casual footwear company Solethreads, based in Gurugram, raised USD 3.7 million in series A fundraising on Tuesday from both new and existing investors. Along with current investors, DSG consumer partners Saama Capital, and angel investors Nihir Nalin Parikh and Dhaval Nalin Parikh, Fireside Ventures led the round as a new investment.
Solethreads is a 2020-founded brand of sneakers, flip-flops and slides focusing on design, innovation and sustainability. The company says that through distributors and in significant retail formats, including Shoppers Stop, Reliance Retail, and Metro Shoes, it has a solid omnichannel presence in more than 600 multi-brand outlets (MBOs). The company intends to use the fresh cash infusion to boost its design innovation lab and R&D centre, expand its launch pipeline, and investigate new categories in the casual footwear market.
Solethreads aims to close the financial year with a presence in more than 1000 MBOs and aspires to be among the Top 3 Casual footwear brands in the semi-premium category on E-commerce marketplaces.
Commenting on the funding, Co-founder and CEO Sumant Kakaria said, “Solethreads was launched to offer the best casual footwear designs and innovations to the customers. Global brands have dominated the footwear industry, 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.
On the fundraise, Vinay Singh, Co-founder of Fireside Ventures, said, “At Fireside Ventures, we look for brands that understand the consumers they are serving and create products that are solving their unmet needs. 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”.
Since Solethreads is a locally produced, design-led brand, it is prepared to keep up with the industry’s estimated eight-fold growth by 2030 and the expected USD 6 billion threshold by 2024.
