FEF aims to be one of the largest fashion funds in the world: Gunjan Nagpal

Addressing the e4m D2C Revolution Summit held on Wednesday, Gunjan Nagpal, Vice President and Head of Sales, Fashion Entrepreneur Fund, said that a venture studio called Fashion Entrepreneur Fund (FEF) is being launched this year in a bid to empower aspiring fashion and lifestyle entrepreneurs.FEF is being launched in September with an aim to help fashion entrepreneurs with fundraising, budgeting, accounting, compliance and any other service required to make their businesses flourish.

Speaking on ‘Empowering businesses through comprehensive support, resources and strategic partnerships: The FEF way’, Nagpal highlighted how the fashion industry suffered during COVID-19 times and it is due to the lack of any government policies to support such businesses, FEF was born.

“COVID-19 was a good time for D2C brands as people were ordering and businesses were flourishing. For the fashion industry, COVID was a setback. Consumers were not coming to stores; weddings were not happening and lifestyle brands also got affected.

“So, we came up with a venture studio to empower all entrepreneurs from the domain of fashion and lifestyle. We mentor and assist any aspiring entrepreneur in fashion and lifestyle space,” Nagpal said.

The FEF kicks off in September this year when the registrations will begin.

The funding platform is supported by business moguls like Ravi Jaipuria, Naveen Jindal, Karan Johar, Vinod Dugar, Samir Modi, Sandeep Jain and Robin Raina, who will invest more than Rs. 20 crore in fashion-based businesses and startups.

Philanthropist and Founder of Talent Factory and India Fashion Awards, Sanjay Nigam, is the founder of this venture studio while social activist and businessman Vagish Pathak is the Chairperson. 

Sharing the vision of FEF, Nagpal said that in 2023-24, it will start with a corpus of Rs 20 crore and in five years, FEF aims to be one of the largest fashion funds in the world with a corpus of Rs 640 crore.

“We aim to take the franchise international in the third year, particularly to all the fashion capitals of the world, primarily London, Tokyo, Miami and Paris,” he said.

Nagpal also said that a nine-episode web series is being produced by Dharma Productions on OTT with around 1 lakh participants who will register.

The series, which will be hosted by Karan Johar, will have 15 jury members who will shortlist 30 finalists.

“There will be on-ground processes and phases the participants will have to get through. We will have over 100 sponsors who would help the participants to go to the next level and mentor them.

“Anyone from the fashion and lifestyle domain, like fashion agency, fashion photographer, DTC clothing brand, fashion ecommerce brand, make-up artist, accessory designer or marketing agency can register,” Nagpal said.