Gurugram-based fashion discovery platform Slayd has raised Rs 1.5 crore in a pre-seed funding round led by AJVC, the early-stage fund founded by Aviral Bhatnagar. The investment values the startup at approximately Rs 16.66 crore post-money and will support team expansion as well as the growth of its private label business, Slayd Originals. The funding marks an early institutional validation of Slayd's attempt to simplify online fashion discovery across a fragmented retail landscape.
Investor Backing and Valuation
The backing from AJVC highlights investor interest in consumer-facing discovery tools within Indian fashion e-commerce. The pre-seed round sets Slayd's post-money valuation at around Rs 16.66 crore and gives the young company capital to validate its proposition. This valuation offers an early reference point for a startup that is still scaling both its user base and private-label operations.
Building a Discovery Layer for Fashion
Slayd was founded in 2025 by IIT Roorkee alumni Sparsh Jain, Harsh Porwal, and Kumar Prasang. The company aggregates fashion products from more than 300 marketplaces and direct-to-consumer brands into a single discovery experience. It adds around 100,000 new products every month and evaluates them through a proprietary model that tracks more than eight signals to identify emerging trends.
Early User Traction and Engagement
Slayd claims to have crossed 200,000 users with a month-one retention rate above 40 percent. Its most engaged users record more than ten sessions per month, while the platform identifies over 2,000 products as emerging hot sellers. Instead of acting as another standalone marketplace, Slayd organises products into theme-based collections and personalised feeds that help shoppers discover items across multiple fashion platforms.
Founder Perspective on Market Fragmentation
According to cofounder Sparsh Jain, India sees more than 100,000 new apparel designs launched every month across hundreds of fragmented e-commerce platforms. Shoppers still need to navigate multiple destinations to understand what is trending, and Slayd aims to serve as the discovery layer for this market. Jain emphasised that the startup is building the infrastructure to connect this dispersed supply with consumer demand.
Private Label Growth and Trend Data
Slayd has also entered the private-label segment through Slayd Originals, which launched in beta earlier this year and currently generates about 1,000 orders monthly. The startup uses its product and trend data to identify styles that can be developed under its own label. Cofounder Harsh Porwal explained that understanding shopper preferences before production allows the company to control design and supply chain for better pricing, quality, and consistency.
Capital Allocation and Immediate Priorities
The fresh capital will be directed toward expanding Slayd's operational team and scaling Slayd Originals after the successful pre-seed round led by AJVC. The company plans to strengthen both sides of its business by investing in talent acquisition and building product lines around real-time trend analytics. This dual approach combines a broad discovery platform with a private-label operation informed by the shopping signals generated across that platform.
Slayd's pre-seed financing provides meaningful validation for a model that blends discovery, trend intelligence, and private-label commerce. The company enters its next phase with capital to grow its team, refine its trend identification capabilities, and expand Slayd Originals in India's competitive digital fashion market. Its early traction and data-driven approach position it to address a clear gap in how shoppers discover and access trending fashion online.