Srikanth
Fashion discovery platform Shouto.app, co-founded by former Myntra, AJIO and Amazon executives Maruthy Ramgandhi, Abhishekk Handa and Ayyappan Lakshmanan, has formally launched its operations. The Company has raised $1.6 million in a Pre Seed round led by Saama. Other investors who participated include Whiteboard Capital, Google veteran and former head of search Amit Singhal, Arjun Vaidya (Founder, Dr. Vaidyas) along with 25 D2C founder angels.
The funds will be invested in product development, creator acquisition and engagement, and building a strong founding team of engineers and creator success managers.
ShoutO aims to build a new online fashion shopping experience targeting Gen Z and young
millennial consumers, offering them a platform to discover and shop premium fashion brands as well as discover private-labels. The Company is focused on building new and differentiated shopping features and creator-driven style curations that work well for modern fashion categories like athleisure and street, and serve consumer preferences like sustainable clothing and extended sizes including plus, petite, tall etc. ShoutO fashion creators create their own shopify-like stores, recommend products, and monetise based on traction, while consumers browse and discover styles recommended by their favorite fashion creators.
Maruthy Ramgandhi, Co-founder CEO, ShoutO, says, “Discovery is an untapped market,
especially in the fashion segment as large fashion marketplaces are focused on serving the large brands or building for the masses. They do not address the nuanced fashion needs of GenZ and young millennials entirely. We surveyed a large set of shoppers in this target segment, and found 52% of them to spend a lot of time searching for the right styles before making a purchase. On an average, they visit 3 to 4 brand or marketplace websites. This discerning consumer group also seeks to stand-out and fit in at the same time and relies heavily on authentic voices in the creator industry to influence their choices. 62% of them feel their fashion choices are influenced by creator content on Instagram or Pinterest. We want to build ShoutO as a starting point for fashion discovery connecting these two opportunities and simplify the shopping process”. He further adds, “At ShoutO, we are building a community of ‘by-invite only’ creators who we have handpicked for their genuineness and scale. These early individuals are in turn helping to set the tone and culture of the community. With this community creators can fulfill their passion of spreading their style and helping their fans and followers discover new fashion recommendations, while creating a linear source of income on the ShoutO platform”.
Speaking on the investment, Ash Lilani, Managing Partner, Saama, says, “We are seeing social and creator focused shopping startups gain a lot of traction in other markets, especially the US. ShoutO’s focus is to have an amalgamation of both these approaches to be able to build a top fashion destination for young Indians. Their talented leadership team, ambitious vision, and unique partnerships with top fashion brands provide a strong foundation toward succeeding in this mission of redefining how fashion discovery works in India.” Saama has backed marquee companies like PayTM, Snapdeal, Sula, Chai Point and Zeni at an early stage.
On the business front, ShoutO has already scaled to 50+ creator stores with 3000+ fashion recommendations on the platform catering to a wide range of themes from streetwear to Ethnic, Casuals to Holiday wear and much more. ShoutO’s creators cumulatively add up to half a million followers on social media, especially on Instagram. The platform has 60,000+ monthly active users, which is a 510% jump month-on-month. ShoutO aims to have 500k Monthly Active Users by Dec this year, post which the company will look to raise a larger seed round.
