Third Wave Fashion // MARCH 2014 // THE FIT TECH ISSUE | Page 28

S H OW M E

THE MONEY

$352.2M TOTAL
RAISED FOR FEBRUARY
February was an exciting month,
thanks in large part to Russian
President Vladimir Putin and the
spectacles that accompanied the 2014
Winter Olympics in Sochi. While the
world was watching top athletes on the
international stage, we were watching
the top investments from India to
Ohio. e 22 investments we tracked
ranged from $25,000 to an incredible
$134 million for a total of $351.2M
invested in February. ough just over
half of the investments came from the
US, nearly 60 percent of the money
invested went to international
companies.
Who took home the proverbial gold for
February investments?
India-based Snapdeal raised the most
money, bringing in an impressive
$134M primarily from eBay. Many
sources gave this investment high
praises, TechCrunch even called it
“betting big,” but confidence in the
Indian market isn’t anything new.
Jabong, an online fashion and lifestyle
retailer from Gurgaon, 20 miles outside

New Delhi, also raised $27.5M in a
partial close. With these two
investments from February, interest in
the market can also be seen in Myntra’s
$50M investment from January, and
Flipkart’s October investment of
$160M. e year started with an
emphasis on expanding to new
markets, and considering these
investments have pulled in over $370M
for the Indian market, it is only smart
to look at options in the growing online
retail space of the region.
With markets growing and companies
expanding, maintaining a steady and
reliable supply chain becomes even
more essential. anks to Elementum,
the second largest investment of the
month at $44M, companies are able to
do just that. e California-based
company created a user-friendly
mobile data analysis of supply chains,
giving users immediate access to
information like delays and problems
with “individual segments” of the chain
before the issues translate to the
customer level. ough the idea of a
mobile-friendly analytics system seems
too good to be true, the amount of
analysis the system is capable of is
nothing short of impressive.

“Peer-to-peer shipping
provides flexibility in delivery
in aspects of both when the
package is delivered and
where it is delivered.”

In addition to Elementum, retail tools
also took the third largest investment
with $41M invested in eCommera, a
London-based company whose
soware analyzes everyday retail data
to enhance the retail management
process. With iBeacons and bluetooth

SNAPDEAL RAISED

$134M
trackers, the search for excellence in
quantifying the retail experience has
been an exciting one, but eCommera
uses a different approach. By tracking
things like purchase history and
inventory, the soware seemingly
provides insight based on typical retail
processes to make stronger decisions as
a retailer without installing any new
hardware in the store.
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