Buttercups secures funds from Google India MD, others

After failing to complete the series-A round of financing, this time, lingerie startup Buttercups has been successful in securing funds from various existing and new investors including Google India managing director (MD) Rajan Anandan and an informal investor Chandra Chappadi. The company is yet to disclose the deal size of this round of funding.

Existing investors Kanwaljit Singh, founder of Fireside Ventures and Anand Chandrasekaran, former product head at Snapdeal, also participated in this round while Anandan funded the Bangalore-based startup through Lets-Venture, an online funding platform.

"Last year was tough for Buttercups after we failed to raise the series-A round. We were in the market to raise $1 million early last year, but investors were wary about the lingerie brand business and were concerned about scalability," media reports said quoting Buttercups CEO Arpita Ganesh.

The non-availability of funds in series-A affected the business badly. It led to drastic decline in sales by November last year, with the count going down to 100 per month from 400.

The manufacturing base was also shifted to India from China and there was closing down of two fitting rooms in India, apart from cutting down the staff strength by around 25 per cent.

The company’s revenue of Rs 1.04 crore in FY17, as per filings with ministry of corporate affairs, have also been much lower than that of competitors such as Clovia and Zivame.

Now, the lingerie retailer is all set to launch its new range of bras in nursing, maternity and sports and is also looking forward to expand in other cities including Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai.