Virat Kohli Backed Brand Wrogn Secures INR 125 Cr Investment From Aditya Birla Group's TMRW Venture Aditya Birla Group's fashion and lifestyle venture TMRW has invested INR 125 crore for a 16 per cent stake in Universal Sportsbiz Pvt. Ltd (USPL), the parent company of Wrogn which is backed by Virat Kohli.
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The men's apparel brand, backed by Indian cricketer Virat Kohli, WROGN has raised INR 125 crore ($15 million) from Aditya Birla Group owned TMRW House of Brands for a 16 per cent stake. With this investment, TMRW's portfolio now consists of eight Indian fashion brands. The investment comes with an option for TMRW to potentially acquire a majority stake in the future, as per Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd's announcement in an exchange filing.
Since its inception in 2014, WROGN has secured approximately $90 million in funding from notable investors such as Accel, Flipkart, Virat Kohli, and Sachin Tendulkar. In November 2020, Flipkart participated in WROGN's Series F round with an undisclosed investment, as per their press release.
TMRW said in a statement that with the partnership, Wrogn is ready to unlock its next phase of omni-channel growth. Apart from strengthening its leadership position on fashion platforms like Myntra, the partnership will help expand Wrogn's offline footprint and provide impetus to scaling up the D2C business.
WROGN experienced rapid growth in recent fiscal years (FY), but its momentum stalled in FY23. Revenue increased by just 2.3 per cent, reaching INR 344 crore in FY23, up from INR 336 crore in FY22. In contrast to this modest revenue growth, the company's losses surged by 33 per cent, rising to INR 44.26 crore from INR 33.63 crore during the same period, as per reports from Entrackr.
"We are excited about this new collaboration that will bring all-round synergies to take Wrogn to the next level," said Mahendran Balachandran, partner at Accel, a venture capital firm.
The fashion and lifestyle sector is India's second-largest consumer category, valued at $110 billion, with about 10 per cent of this market being online, according to a 2023 report by Bain and Co.
