Reliance Retail Buys 89% Stake In Lingerie Retailer Clovia
In a deal for INR 950 crore, Reliance Retail purchased the interest. Clovia is Reliance Retail’s third acquisition in the same segment, following the acquisitions of Zivame and Amante. Clovia’s most recent investment round was a $10 million Series B round in 2019.
“The one common, unifying thread that runs through everything we have ever done at Reliance is the spirit of CARE and EMPATHY. This is what the true Reliance spirit was, is, and will always be.”
– Mukesh D. Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, RIL at Annual General Meet 2021
Reliance Retail is the retail arm of Reliance Industries Limited, and it is at the heart of the company’s consumer-facing operations. Reliance Retail has been at the forefront of the organised retail revolution in India.
The operating strategy of Reliance Retail unleashes the ambitious spirit of a rising India. The driving idea of Reliance Retail is to enable inclusion, growth, and the creation of long-term societal value for millions of Indians.
It has established strong and lasting ties with millions of customers quickly by providing them with a limitless range of products, a fantastic value proposition, superior quality, and an unrivalled shopping experience across all of its stores.
Throughout the years, the rise of Reliance Retail has generated a massive socio-economic revolution in India.
Reliance Retail has been named the world’s fastest-growing retailer. It is the only Indian retailer in the Top 100 and is rated 53rd in the list of Top Global Retailers. India’s largest and most lucrative retailer has the most comprehensive distribution network.
Reliance Retail has around 150 million dedicated customers who shop in its stores. In FY20, it had more than 640 million footfalls across all of its locations, a scale unequalled by any other Indian retailer. With over 100,000 transactions per hour, Reliance Retail is unrivalled in the Indian retail business and continues to improve the lives of millions of Indians every day.
Reliance Retail has implemented a multi-pronged strategy and operates a diverse range of store formats to meet consumers’ planned and daily or occasional shopping needs across the primary consumption baskets of grocery, consumer electronics, and fashion and lifestyle.
Reliance Retail operates food, fresh produce, bakery, dairy products, home and personal care products, and general merchandise items through its Reliance Fresh, Shree Kannan Departmental stores, SMART and Smart Point store formats.
Reliance Retail operates the Reliance Digital and MyJio Store formats in the Consumer Electronics consumption basket, which offer a wide choice of consumer electronics, home appliances, computing and mobility items, and the latest gadgets and accessories. ResQ, a full-service corporation and India’s only ISO 9001 certified electronics servicing brand, supports these stores.
Reliance Retail operates a portfolio of formats in the Fashion and Lifestyle consumption basket that cater to customers in the value, mid, premium, and luxury categories. Reliance Retail operates the Trends, Trends Woman, Trends Man, Trends Footwear, Project Eve, Reliance Jewels, and Hamley’s formats, as well as a portfolio of over 40 global brands including Armani, Burberry, Diesel, GAS, Marks & Spencer, Superdry, Brooks Brothers, Steve Madden, and others.
Reliance Retail has a strong presence in digital commerce channels through AJIO.com, a curated fashion and lifestyle store that brings the best of national and international brands to customers’ doorsteps.
Another is Jiomart, India’s most prominent hyperlocal retail solution, leveraging Reliance Retail’s extensive grocery store network and well-established supply chain infrastructure.
Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL), supported by Reliance Industries (RIL), announced on Sunday that it had purchased an 89 per cent equity investment in Purple Panda Fashions Private Limited, which owns and manages Clovia, on March 21, 2022.
Reliance Retail will spend Rs 950 crore through secondary and primary stock purchases.
Pankaj Vermani, Neha Kant, and Suman Choudhary launched Clovia, a bridge-to-premium D2C brand for women’s innerwear and loungewear.
With this acquisition, Reliance expands its innerwear portfolio, including the Zivame and Amante brands.
For Rs 950 crore, ‘Reliance Retail’ buys an 89 per cent stake in lingerie retailer Clovia.
With an investment of Rs 950 crore, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) acquired a majority 89 per cent equity stake in Clovia, an industry leader in the bridge-to-premium intimate wear category.
Clovia Crafting #Underfashion is India’s most famous lingerie brand!
It’s the first thing you put on and the final thing you take off. The company provides quality lingerie with a solution-based approach for Indian women stuck with vanilla and one-size-fits-all underwear for generations.
Clovia has more than 200 locations across 50 countries. It is backed by Ivy Cap Ventures, Mountain Partners in Zurich, and AT Capital in Singapore.
Through a combination of secondary share purchase and primary investment, RRVL has acquired an 89 per cent equity position in Purple Panda Fashions Pvt Ltd, which owns and manages the Clovia business, according to a joint statement.
According to the statement, the remainder of the company will be owned by the founding team and management.
RRVL will strengthen its portfolio in the innerwear area with this acquisition, having previously bought the Zivame and Amante brands.
Clovia is India’s leading bridge-to-premium D2C innerwear and loungewear brand for millennial women, founded in 2013 by Pankaj Vermani, Neha Kant, and Suman Choudhary.
It has a loyal customer base in the intimate apparel market and is known for its design-driven fresh trends and competitively priced offers.
RRVL Director Isha Ambani commented on the move, saying, “Reliance has always been at the forefront of expanding options and providing consumers with the finest value proposition. We’re excited to welcome ‘Clovia,’ a stylish, high-quality, and design-driven intimate apparel company, to our portfolio. We are excited to work with Clovia’s outstanding management team to help the company reach new heights.”
Pankaj Vermani, the founder and CEO of Clovia, stated, “Clovia is thrilled to be joining the Reliance Retail team. We will benefit from Reliance’s scale and retail knowledge as a result of this relationship, broadening the brand’s visibility and bringing together a stronger value proposition in the intimate apparel category through world-class quality, design, and fashion. Clovia will be the most popular brand in our category, and we are looking forward to making that happen.”
RRVL is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd, an oil-to-chemical conglomerate.
Last November, RRVL paid an unknown sum to MAS Brands, a wholly-owned Sri Lanka-based MAS Holdings subsidiary, for the retail lingerie companies under the ‘Amante’ umbrella brand. It also bought a minority share in Actoserba Active Wholesale, the company that owns and operates the online lingerie retailer Zivame.
In October, RRVL paid an undisclosed sum for a 52 per cent ownership in Ritika Pvt Ltd, the firm of legendary couturier Ritu Kumar. Reliance Brands Ltd (RBL) has also announced that it has acquired a 40% minority investment in MM Styles Pvt Ltd, owned by renowned fashion designer Manish Malhotra.
Shopping Spree at Reliance Retail
Reliance Retail has recently turned its focus to B2C brands. In January of this year, it paid $200 million for a 25.8% fully diluted ownership in Dunzo, a hyperlocal delivery business.
In 2022, the corporation paid $132 million for a 54 per cent share in Addverb Technologies, an Indian robotics startup. This makes Clovia the third startup in which Reliance has chosen to invest this year.
Reliance Retail paid INR 3,497 crore for a controlling stake in JustDial, a 25-year-old Internet search and discovery platform. For an undisclosed fee in 2021, the Mukesh Ambani-led company purchased a 96.49 per cent share in Milkbasket, another D2C venture.
After months of speculation, it purchased a 60 per cent share in pharmacy company Netmeds for $83 million in 2020.
More information on Clovia
Clovia founder
Clovia is a company that makes and sells lingerie, shapewear, sleepwear, and swimwear for women. Ivy Cap Ventures and Mountain Partners AG, both based in Zurich, have invested in the company. According to CB insights, Clovia is one of the top 10 early-stage e-commerce firms to watch.
Pankaj Vermani, an IIT post-graduate and serial entrepreneur; Neha Kant, an e-commerce expert; Suman Chowdhury, a design veteran with 16 years of experience; and Aditya Chaturvedi, an HBTI graduate and a startup specialist, founded the company in 2013.
According to a 2015 interview, the founders saw a significant void in the Indian intimate wear market for women. Traditionally, Indian women have been exposed to a limited number of styles and designs, and anything that appears to be well-designed is exorbitantly expensive. Retailers sold what was most accessible to stock, such as a restricted range of sizes, fits, and solutions. The outerwear of a woman has evolved dramatically in the last decade, particularly in the workplace, but innerwear has not. Given this, they recognised an opportunity in creating a new lingerie brand with a collection that caters to the needs of today’s working women through solution-based trendy underwear.
Today, the company is growing at over 100% every quarter and ships over 2,50,000 units per month. After launching its online store in 2013, the company created ten shop-in-shop locations at airports as a marketing channel to get closer to customers, reach out to them, and receive direct feedback.
Clovia has over 3 lakh registered members and 2.8 million page users, according to a Techportal report from November 2015 and sells 1 lakh units each month with a month-over-month growth rate of 15-20 per cent. Clovia’s inventory management is a significant issue as a manufacturer because roughly 100-200 new designs are released every month, which is a tremendous quantity. According to the same article, Clovia leverages big data and technology like machine learning and artificial intelligence to produce underwear to fix this problem.
According to a March 2016 report in TechinAsia, Clovia’s rise can be ascribed to their bra collection, accounting for almost 65 per cent of Clovia’s overall sales. In addition, the brand is branching out into new areas like swimwear, loungewear, and fast fashion.
Clovia currently designs in-house and outsources production to over 16 manufacturers, most located in North India.
