By Agilitas Sports, co-founded by former MD of Puma India Abhishek Ganguly, on Wednesday said it has raised Rs 100 crore in funding from Nexus Venture Partners.
The fresh infusion by the venture capital firm will help Agilitas Sports with more resources in its “ambitious journey”, which is planning to build consumer brands to tap the fast-growing domestic sports and athleisure markets, Ganguly told PTI.
Agilitas, which earlier raised Rs 430 crore, acquired Mochiko Shoes in September this year. After having a sports footwear manufacturing vertical, it now plans to own brands either through acquisition or licensing for a comprehensive play into the sportswear market.
“We would have a comprehensive approach and invest in the entire value chain. We are strengthening our manufacturing capabilities further. And now we are building design creation centres and strong R&D facilities. We would also invest in brands that truly resonate with the consumers,” said Ganguly.
Sharing his roadmap, he said, “We will be acquiring brands and also enter into long-term licence agreements with global brands, which have an existing recall, design ethos, heritage value and credibility”.
When asked about the time frame, Ganguly said it would be very soon, probably in the next 2-6 months.
“We are evaluating a couple of acquisitions. The idea here was to start at an elevated level and then scale the business in the right direction,” he said.
Over the funding from Nexus Venture, Ganguly said it is poised to accelerate Agilitas’ scale-up trajectory, further solidifying its end-to-end capabilities from research to manufacturing to retail, propelling Agilitas to take on the globe.
“Overall, we wanted to get more capital so that we can be very ambitious in our journey of building not just the manufacturing side but also the consumer side of the business,” he noted.
India’s sportswear market is poised to grow at 4x by 2030. Agilitas would tap into the home-grown sports ecosystem and a self-sufficient value chain.
Nexus Venture Partners co-founder/Managing Director Suvir Sujan said: “Coupled with the collective operating experience of the co-founders in the Indian sports footwear market, we believe that the team is onto a pathbreaking sports company that is poised for global impact”.
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, where more Indians are moving towards an active and health-conscious lifestyle, he added.
Ganguly, earlier this year, left Puma India, along with its executive director for sales and operations Atul Bajaj and CFO Amit Prabhu, to set up Agilitas Sports, an innovation-led sportswear and athleisure solutions platform.
