NewDelhi: After investing close to $700 million in Flipkart’s marketplace and new healthcare vertical, the Walmart Singapore subsidiary invested about $116 million in its fashion retailer Myntra, as per the regulatory filings in Singapore on March 25.
With this investment, Flipkart’s investment reached to around $800 million in its various businesses in March. Earlier it invested about $553 million in Flipkart Marketplaces along with $143 million in its new healthcare entity. Flipkart recently launched a new app for its healthcare business, called Flipkart Health+, on April 6.
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The new investment booster comes as Myntra is facing a new threat in the category, from rival fashion platforms like Reliance’s Ajio and beauty retailer Nykaa which debuts on the Indian stock market as well. Nykaa has used technology to dominate the beauty and personal care industry. Meanwhile, several other brands like conglomerates – Reliance and Tata are looking to build their own beauty and personal care platforms. Tata Group has recently launched an all-in-one app Tata-Neu along with its fashion platforms – Tata Cliq and Westside.
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Myntra’s new CEO Nandita Sinha told that the company would focus on building live commerce and the beauty category in the near future. The live commerce feature is Myntra’s new initiative to target Gen Z shoppers.
“The fashion category is a tough business and it requires significant investments in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, metaverse, and virtual reality,” said Ashutosh Sharma, vice-president and research director at Forrester.
Myntra will continue to run independently under the new management with its own strategy, targeting its customer segments, he said. However, Myntra will use this investment to enhance the tech and AI to evolve as a one-stop online fashion platform. Earlier, Flipkart acquired Myntra for nearly 2000 crores in 2014.
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