{"id":375081,"date":"2026-04-11T22:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/375081\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T22:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:01:08","slug":"rapid-fashion-startups-are-dressed-to-killbut-can-the-model-keep-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/375081\/","title":{"rendered":"Rapid fashion startups are dressed to kill\u2026but can the model keep up?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new crop of venture-backed startups is testing the quick-commerce playbook in fashion, delivering clothing, footwear and accessories in under an hour in metro cities, but high cash burn and uncertain demand are raising questions about the model\u2019s scalability.<\/p>\n

Startups such as Knot, Slikk and Zilo along with quick-delivery arms of online fashion players Myntra, Ajio and Newme are burning cash on heavy discounting to attract customers. These \u2018rapid fashion\u2019 startups together burned $2-2.5 million in January alone, which rose to $3 million in March, multiple industry executives told ET.<\/p>\n

Despite the cash burn, the segment has gathered the attention of investors who bet on it becoming the next quick commerce breakthrough. In February, Zilo raised $15.3 million<\/a> funding led by Peak XV. Slikk, which is backed by Lightspeed and Nexus Venture Partners, is in talks to raise $15-20 million more, ET reported in March<\/a>. Knot raised a $5 million<\/a> round led by 12 Flags in December. <\/p>\n

The segment evolved from quick-commerce platforms such as Zepto, Instamart and Blinkit, which offered basic fashion items for last-minute purchases. Then emerged vertical fashion commerce startups offering a larger portfolio for party, work and festive wear with rapid delivery. <\/p>\n

Newly-launched fast fashion marketplace Klydo offers delivery in 15-30 minutes in Bengaluru while Gen Z-focused direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand Newme\u2019s Zip offers 30-minute delivery and men\u2019s D2C fashion brand Snitch has launched \u2018Snitch Quick\u2019. Launched in 2024, Myntra\u2019s rapid commerce arm M-Now, was driving 10% of orders<\/a> in locations where the service was live as of last November. Taking it one step further, these rapid fashion players have launched \u2018try and buy\u2019 and \u2018virtual try-on\u2019 options to tackle the return problems.<\/p>\n

\"ImageETtech\n <\/p>\n

Investors upbeat<\/p>\n

Investors believe the growing segment has high potential and room for a number of successful players. \u201cOnline fashion hasn’t meaningfully evolved in a decade,\u201d said Sunitha Viswanathan, partner at Kae Capital, which invested in Mumbai-based Knot last December.<\/p>\n

Ecommerce has a strong fashion catalogue but the experience\u2014waiting for days for delivery and hoping the fit works\u2014\u201cdoesn\u2019t resonate with young shoppers who are driven by impulse and influenced by social media,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

The quick commerce market size for fashion is about $1.7-2 billion currently, according to Kae Capital. \u201cThe price of the pie is much larger,\u201d Viswanathan said.<\/p>\n

Some said high enough order density to justify the infrastructure within a tight catchment is key for the model\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will only work when there is an additional value proposition of better products and better portfolio,\u201d said Dipanjan Basu, cofounder and partner at Fireside Ventures, which has invested in Newme. \u201cConvenience alone cannot be the mode for this business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also Read: Scroll, spot, buy: Why fashion and lifestyle shopping is growing on Instagram<\/a><\/p>\n

Also, keeping up with ever-changing fashion preferences remains a major hurdle, experts said.<\/p>\n

Platforms are using artificial intelligence (AI) to predict design and demand to be more efficient with space and inventory. However, these AI tools built for reducing returns haven\u2019t been able to make significant headway.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inventory issue is very real. Platforms are unable to solve this using AI,\u201d an investor in one of these startups said on condition of anonymity. \u201cUsers want to see more options in rapid commerce because they are tuned to seeing thousands of options in fashion for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Different approaches<\/p>\n

Unlike most platforms in the segment that use dark stores for inventory, platforms like Zilo and Booon have partnered with brand stores to improve their stock keeping units (SKUs).<\/p>\n

\u201cLike the horizontal and vertical players, we also launched our business powered by dark stores. Parallelly, we integrated brand stores to our network as well,\u201d said Bhavik Jhaveri, founder of Zilo. \u201cThis way, users get access to a larger choice, which is integral to the customer in this segment.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained that dark stores can only hold 7,000\u20138,000 styles and marketing as a \u2018last minute\u2019 store, a firm can get one or two transactions from each user.<\/p>\n

Booon, founded by former Myntra executive Arun Kumar, has taken a similar approach to operate on a zero dark store model. \u201cUnlike others, this segment needs a large number of SKUs because consumers want choices for every occasion, price-point and more,\u201d Kumar said.<\/p>\n

The platform is currently in talks to raise its first funding round.<\/p>\n

Also Read: India\u2019s beauty and personal care market set to grow to $39 billion in FY30: Report<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new crop of venture-backed startups is testing the quick-commerce playbook in fashion, delivering clothing, footwear and accessories…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[195693,138,195692,336,195690,195691,111,139,69,195689,195688,195687],"class_list":{"0":"post-375081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-ai-in-fashion-e-commerce","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-cash-burn-in-startups","11":"tag-entrepreneurship","12":"tag-fashion-e-commerce","13":"tag-investors-in-fashion-startups","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-on-demand-fashion-delivery","18":"tag-quick-commerce-in-fashion","19":"tag-rapid-fashion-startups"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}