Arvind Lifestyle Brands, a textile-to-retail conglomerate, is said to be in advanced talks to acquire Sequoia Capital-funded e-commerce company, Freecultr.
According to a report in The Economic Times: Arvind is currently carrying out due diligence of the online fashion and lifestyle brand and a deal is expected in the coming months.
Freecultr will be acquired by Arvind Internet, the conglomerate’s online arm that is spearheaded by Kulin Lalbhai, son of chairman Sanjay Lalbhai.
Lately, Freecultr has been in the market to raise funds, but without any success amid funding drying up and this prompted the company to initiate talks to sell to Arvind.
Freecultr started as an online fashion brand in 2011 and recently it has launched a new digital crowd sourcing platform, Freecultr Express. This platform allows anyone to create and sell T-shirts through their tee-stores on the company’s sites without any investments in the inventory, operations or logistics.
Under this format, Freecultr will produce T-shirts of the selected designs and the creator gets commission on sales. Till now, more than 5,500 individuals have used the platform to create more than 24,000 designs.
The company also operates nine Freecultr-branded brick-and-mortar stores, including in the National Capital Region, Mumbai, Dehradun, Lucknow and Bengaluru.
Arvind has many brands of its own, such as Flying Machine and Excalibur, and also sells global labels including Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, US Polo Association, Gant, Children’s Place and Aeropostale.
Arvind is currently carrying out due diligence of the online fashion and lifestyle brand and a deal is expected in the coming months
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