Fashion e-retailers Inkfruit and Zovi merge

Online private label fashion retailers Inkfruit and Zovi today announced the closing of a merger. In addition, Zovi also announced its third big round of funding wherein it raised $10m from two of its lead investors, SAIF Partners and Tiger Global. This round brings the total funding raised in the combined entity to $35 million.

Inkfruit is India's first co-creation based online lifestyle brand operating across of apparel, accessories, footwear and home décor.

Started in 2008 by two batch-mates from IIT Bombay, Kashyap Dalal and Navneet Rai, Inkfruit began as a crowd sourcing platform where artists from all over the world could contribute their creations for the retailer to feature.

Headquartered in Bangalore with the product division based in Gurgaon, New Delhi, ZOVI is a new men and women's fashion and lifestyle brand available exclusively online.
ZOVI.com was launched in July 2011 with a men's fashion line and has since grown to include a women's line, home furnishing, kidswear and an increasing number of fashion products such as shoes, socks, bags, belts, ties and jewellery in the formals and casual wear.

A recent report by Google estimates that in 2013, apparel and accessories will become the largest consumer interest category for Indian online shoppers. This merger between Zovi and Inkfruit has been driven by a great opportunity that the rapidly emerging ecommerce market in India presents.

Kashyap Dalal, CEO, Inkfruit, said, ''We are excited by the opportunity to integrate the businesses and leverage complementary team strengths, product lines and customer bases to scale rapidly. We look forward to working as one team and build one of the largest e-commerce businesses over the next few years.''

Manish Chopra, CEO, Zovi,said, ''This merger creates the country's strongest private label online fashion company. We look forward to blending together with the Inkfruit team and leveraging their unique design and creative capabilities.''

The combined entity will operate out of two centres, Bangalore and Gurgaon with a satellite office in Mumbai to support the regional sourcing and logistics functions.