Shah Rukh Khan boards e-commerce bus with Yepme
The four-year-old company has got on board advertising agency McCann Erickson's Prasoon Joshi to work on the new campaign.
By Samidha Sharma, TNN |
MUMBAI: From Bollywood superstars to leading industrialists, everyone wants a piece of the red-hot Indian online retail market. The latest to board the e-commerce gravy train is superstar actor Shah Rukh Khan who has signed on as the brand ambassador for fashion e-tailer Yepme in what will be his maiden association with an online commerce player. The deal with the Gurgaon-based company is structured in a way that lets the actor pick up a stake in Yepme going forward, an executive from the e-tailer told TOI.
Yepme competes with the likes of Myntra (a part of Flipkart) and Rocket Internet's Jabong and is in the midst of closing a $30-million financing round with a consortium of four investors, including its two existing investors Helion Venture Partners and Capricorn Venture Partners.
The e-tailer, which only sells private brands, plans to spend Rs 15-20 crore over the next three months on its multi-media advertising campaign featuring SRK in an attempt to fight its bigger rivals. Apparel and fashion sales online are estimated at about a billion dollars, rivaling electronics and mobiles, which have traditionally been the biggest draw online.
The four-year-old company has got on board advertising agency McCann Erickson's Prasoon Joshi to work on the new campaign that goes live November 10. It's not been easy going for the online retailer, which had been in the market over the past six to eight months to raise fresh capital.
Talking to TOI, Yepme's co-founder Sandeep Sharma said, in India, to raise growth capital from domestic investors when you have negative ebitda (a measure of the company's operating performance) is still a big challenge. "In July, we started exploring investors outside India and that's when things started to fall in place," he said. The fashion e-tailer has in all raised $21 million across three previous rounds, the last one being in December 2013.
Yepme competes with the likes of Myntra (a part of Flipkart) and Rocket Internet's Jabong and is in the midst of closing a $30-million financing round with a consortium of four investors, including its two existing investors Helion Venture Partners and Capricorn Venture Partners.
The e-tailer, which only sells private brands, plans to spend Rs 15-20 crore over the next three months on its multi-media advertising campaign featuring SRK in an attempt to fight its bigger rivals. Apparel and fashion sales online are estimated at about a billion dollars, rivaling electronics and mobiles, which have traditionally been the biggest draw online.
The four-year-old company has got on board advertising agency McCann Erickson's Prasoon Joshi to work on the new campaign that goes live November 10. It's not been easy going for the online retailer, which had been in the market over the past six to eight months to raise fresh capital.
Talking to TOI, Yepme's co-founder Sandeep Sharma said, in India, to raise growth capital from domestic investors when you have negative ebitda (a measure of the company's operating performance) is still a big challenge. "In July, we started exploring investors outside India and that's when things started to fall in place," he said. The fashion e-tailer has in all raised $21 million across three previous rounds, the last one being in December 2013.
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