Goat Brand picks Pepe stake in Dollar JV

Thrasio-style ecommerce venture Goat Brand Labs, which is backed by Tiger Global, Flipkart Ventures, has bought lifestyle brand Pepe’s stake in its India business which was housed under Pepe Jeans Innerfashion Pvt Ltd --a joint venture between Kolkata-based Dollar Industries and Pepe. Post the new deal, Dollar Industries and Goat Brand will run Pepe Jeans Innerfashion.

The JV entity primarily has the Pepe licence for categories such innerwear, lounge wear,.socks and sleepwear. Goat Brand plans to acquire more brands in the space and will thus change the name of the JV entity in due course, according to Rishi Vasudev, cofounder and CEO, Goat Brand. He was previously fashion head at online marketplace Flipkart. According to a statement by the Goat Brand, Pepe had offered to exit from the India unit asking Dollar to buy out Pepe’s entire stake as per their original agreement which granted the right of first offer (ROFO) to the latter. Dollar subsequently agreed to the transfer of shares held by Pepe to Goat Brand.

Bengaluru-based Goat Brand is said to have bought Pepe's stake for about Rs 15-20 crore and the new licensing for India would be valid for two decades. Vasudev declined to comment on the details of the transaction. He said the company will look to tap into the expertise of Dollar Industries to acquire early stage D2C (direct-to-consumer) brands.


“The innerwear market has always been a focus category for us. Along with Dollar Industries Limited, we plan to create an extensive offline and online presence for the brand and add more brands in the future to our portfolio,” said Vasudev. The current focus of the firm is to build and scale up its online presence and it will explore setting up stores later in the future.

Goat Brand is among the new wave of startups in the ecommerce universe who are acquiring early-stage D2C brands and scale them online as well as offline. Recently it announced 11 strategic investments in D2C brands across sectors like fashion, beauty-skin care, pets and home & kitchen. Mens Brands, GlobalBees are among the prominent names in the space with the former becoming a unicorn- a startup valued at $1 billion or more--in just six months. In July, Goat Brand raised $36 million in funding in a mix of equity and debt capital.