Paragon Partners invests Rs 750 mn in women's fashion brand eShakti

Over the last 10 years, Chennai-based eShakti has risen to be a mainstream brand in the US and also has presence in Australia and Canada

Private equity firm Paragon Partners has invested Rs 750 milion in eShakti, a women's fashion brand based in Chennai. Over the last 10 years, eShakti has risen to be a mainstream women’s fashion clothing brand in the United States, specializing in size and style customisation. It also has presence in Australia and Canada. In the past, the company has raised capital from marquee investors including IDG Ventures, IvyCap and Infina Finance.

Founded by B G Krishnan, a first-generation entrepreneur, eShakti is one of the few international consumer brands from India that enjoys a leadership position in the United States. With its design office located in New York, eShakti competes with the best women’s fashion brands, being fastest to market: 3 to 7 days from planning until launch of new products. eShakti operates an asset light model with a strong technology backend and robust systems that closely track each order to ensure high quality.

Siddharth Parekh, Co-Founder and Senior Partner, Paragon Partners, said “eShakti is one of the early movers in addressing an under-served need for make-to-order apparel for women in the western markets. With its disruptive operating model combined with superior quality of design, fabrics and speed of execution, eShakti has been able to build a strong and growing community of loyal customers in the United States.”

Sumeet Nindrajog, Co-Founder and Senior Partner, Paragon Partners, added “We are thrilled with our partnership with eShakti. Given its lean operating model and strong technology back-end, eShakti can ramp-up operations and scale quickly. Despite customized offerings, eShakti’s return rates are relatively low, further validating the robustness of the design and production processes. We look forward to working with the eShakti team.”

B G Krishnan, Founder & CEO, eShakti, said “The investment from Paragon Partners is primarily needed for growth as we are building a multinational consumer brand with a global footprint. We are excited by the endorsement and opportunity that Paragon's investment represents and we look forward to building on our history of strong growth based on a robust value proposition that gives us both scalability and a competitive advantage. 

Established in 2015, Paragon Partners is a private equity firm focusing on the mid-market segment in India. Investing out of its maiden fund Paragon Partners Growth Fund-I, the firm focuses on making investments in five key sectors comprising consumer discretionary, financial services, infrastructure services (asset light), industrials and healthcare services. The fund has a corpus of $120 million and invests $10 to $20 million in companies where it can play an active role in value creation.