New Delhi : V-Mart Retail Ltd. (V-Mart), India’s leading value fashion retailer, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire LimeRoad the freshness-first discovery marketplace built for the value-seeking aspirational Indian. Through this the Companies will leverage clear identified synergies and deliver emerging fashion trends at unbeatable value to 5 cr. digital first Shoppers of Bharat (Online and offline).
LimeRoad offers the freshest unbranded styles and unique content to its 1.7Crore value shoppers. The platform delivers the fastest web speeds in India, the lightest app, and ensures the smoothest online experience. The back end delivers optimised logistics costs through an award-winning logistics network(Economic Times supply chain of the year award 2018).
At peak, LimeRoad has delivered 250,000+ app downloads per day, had a #3 All India Shopping Play Store ranking, and achieved GMV of Rs. 700+ crore at consistently strong margins, and post-marketing costs. Women contribute to 65% of the business, with strong presence in the Rs. 500-1000 segment. The NPS score of 44, out-scores most marketplaces, translating to strong customer retention rates.
V-Mart has20-years of expertise in understanding the value customer’s needs, ability to deliver high-quality product at value prices, penetration in Tier 2/3/4 cities through a growing network of 410stores, prudence and a track record of delivering shareholder returns.The Companies will combine these capabilities with LimeRoad’s community and editorially driven fashion quotient, ability to spot emerging trends first, logistics efficiency, technology and data to transform the way latest trends are delivered to aspirational consumers across all forms of retail.
At close, V-Mart with LimeRoadwill be a unique one of its kind, profitable Omni-channel player. LimeRoad will fundamentally solve the trust & quality issues for value customers online, and work with V-Mart’s expertise to translate emerging trends into product depth, through sharply focused owned D2C brands. These emerging trends together with LimeRoad’s community expertise will transform V-Mart stores into a rich local-experience centre, driving higher repeat footfall over time. Together, V-Mart & LimeRoad have the potential to become India’s fastest-growing Omni-Channel value fashion retail platform. Given the underlying strong unit economics post-marketing, V-Mart plans to invest a total of 150 Cr to enable LimeRoad to scale and achieve sustained profitability.
Commenting on the transaction Mr Lalit Agarwal, Managing Director of V-Mart Retail Ltd said “V-Mart is one of the strongest players in the value retail segment fulfilling fashion needs of masses across India. With this acquisition we aim to not only acquire digital first millennials but build our Omni-channel expertise.”
“We are proud to bring LimeRoadto the V-Mart family. Suchi and the team have proven their ability to grow and scale a marketplace business while delivering best-in-the-industry metrics. V-Mart will operate LimeRoad as an independent business unit, retaining its tech start-up culture”. Suchi Mukherjee, the founder of LimeRoad joins V-Mart’s leadership team as CEO of LimeRoad &the Omni-channel business & Ankush Mehra co-founder of LimeRoad continues as COO.
Speaking on this acquisition, Suchi Mukherjee, Founder & CEO of LimeRoad said: The Value Customer has a high bar of prices meets style-aspiration meets quality. “V-Mart is a leader in the
price meets quality space. This partnership helps us fundamentally solve the quality conundrum at value prices online, and accelerate our vision of making the freshest of fashion accessible to our core customer through a uniquely rich online-offline experience. This is a large market, expected to grow at 39% CAGR over the next 5 years. Excellent execution is key to sustained share and value creation.”
The completion of the transaction is subject to necessary approvals and customary closing conditions.
Metta Capital acted as an exclusive financial advisor and Saraf and Partners acted as legal advisor to V-Mart for this transaction.
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