‘Brand Accelerator’ to bring more brands to Myntra. Personalisation, increased valuation the intention

Fashion retailer Myntra is planning to expand its portfolio to include foreign brands. The company is going to focus on its Brand Accelerator programme, which focusses on adding new brands to its group. Ananya Tripathi, strategy head at Myntra said,

“We are getting into strategic partnerships with at least 15-20 (local) brands – many of these export houses do great quality manufacturing. We are going to invest in 15 big brands in our country through our platform and together we will try to get to a point where in 3 yearsMyntra has helped create an ecosystem of local brands.”

Omni-channel, local brands, increased valuation and personalisation are the targets

The company is aiming at getting a valuation of $500 million to $1 billion from the local brands it plans to acquire.

“We are also open to having an omni-channel presence because for big brands offline is also an important channel for visibility”, said Tripathi.

She also said that Myntra is keen on tying up with companies that work on areas like personalisation and artificial intelligence.

The company had already spoken about its intention to take its brands offline and its interest in artificial intelligence for personalisation. Myntra had also spoken about encouraging small brands through its Fashion Incubator program. The company is also prudently cutting costs by getting rid of unnecessary office spaces and moving into subsidiary Jabong’s office. The two have also pooled their incomes to achieve a quicker growth figure. All these steps are with an eye on turning profitable by 2018.

Myntra is acting carefully under Ananth Narayanan. What do you think, will it be the first to celebrate profitability?