Bangladesh Angels, the leading angel investment network in the country, closed another pre seed investment in Strides Co, a fashion e-commerce company selling premium contemporary clothing and wardrobe essentials for the modern Bangladeshis, according to a statement.
Young people in Bangladesh lack access to fashion in line with global trends. They desire high quality products at affordable prices. There is no easy access to find such products locally, hence, Strides Co offers a multi-brand fashion e-commerce platform that curates high quality, contemporary, and affordable product range that has a mix of local and international brands along with private labels.
Kowser Ahmed, the angel investor of Strides Co and CEO of The KOW Company remarked, “One of the key factors for me joining hands with strides is the combination of tech and apparel manufacturing experience in founders. Fashion is a tough business everywhere, so having Atiq’s tech expertise and Alavi and Aroni’s apparel manufacturing experience has played a key role in me investing.”
With close to 40 per cent of the total population being online now, Strides Co’s platform caters to 75 per cent of the e-commerce customers whose age ranges between 18-24 years old. The e-commerce industry is ballooning exponentially, having close to 70 per cent month on month growth out of which 40 per cent is in e-commerce sales in fashion.
Hence, the need for fashion focused multi brand e-commerce platforms are in high demand. Bangladesh Angels Network understands the opportunity the market possesses and has hence backed the company to fulfill 50k orders in the next 12 months.
Alavi Khandoker, COO of Strides Co explains, “With our first pre-seed round secured through BAN we have acquired the right partnership in both resources and shared capabilities towards becoming Bangladesh’s leading online fashion destination.”
“Our goal for 2021 was to increase penetration in the online fashion market, by bringing a wider range of products from our in-house brands and third-party sellers. And thereafter reaching these to our target customers through a stronger e-commerce front and broadening our digital marketing channels.”
However, Mr Alavi also revealed a very interesting development that the Strides Co is bringing up. They aim to solve the most common online clothing buying issue, size problem, by letting the customer trial with multiple sizes.
“With this pre-seed round, we have been able to extend this service throughout Dhaka city, and plan to implement across Bangladesh hopefully in the near future.”
Strides Co has fulfilled 2,000 orders already. This new investment will help them focus on the local market penetration with the goal of launching new styles every week. The objective is to explore international brands to be introduced in Bangladesh and become the go to destination for contemporary fashion for modern Bangladeshis in the country. They also aspire to explore international markets that bring in augmented reality (AR) features for their customers.
