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Myntra:What happened?

John W. MullinsLondon Business School

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Myntra’s Funding• Series A round

– August 2008– Raised $4 million– From four VCs

• Indo US Ventures: Bangalore• Erasmic: Bangalore• Accel: Bangalore (CaféPress, Spreadshirt)• IDG: Mumbai

– Post-money valuation $9 million

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2009: A Change in Strategy

• Internet penetration still modest– Sales below target

• Solution– Seek corporate B2B business in

custom apparel and other gifts

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2010: More Funding

• Series B round– July 2010– Raised $13 million– From Tiger Global (New York) and the

original VCs– Post-money valuation $32 million

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Why?

• Internet retailing was hot globally• Internet penetration finally taking

off in India• Myntra seen as among the best

management teams in India’s dot-com landscape

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Another Change in Strategy

• Tiger brought insights from other investments– Do VCs add value?

• New direction– Lifestyle casual apparel and footwear

retailing

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Will Myntra Succeed?

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Lessons Learned

• About business plans– No plan is perfect– But the most common pitfalls and

flaws are easily avoided– Most plans are written way too soon

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Lessons Learned

• About raising capital– Don’t sweat over writing a “perfect”

business plan– Instead

• Rigorously assess the opportunity• Build a credible entrepreneurial team

– 10 years in Silicon Valley startups for Mukesh

• Achieve some milestones, get customer traction

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Lessons Learned• About when to raise capital

– The later, the better– How much of Myntra does Mukesh own?

• Stake was 49% after $200k seed round• Series A dilution 44%: stake cut to 27%• Series B dilution 40%: stake down to 16%

– The longer you can bootstrap, the better! – The more you’ve proven, the better the

valuation!