Sachin Tendulkar & Virat Kohli are both invested in one of the fastest growing apparel company

Pivoting after a major failure, in just 6 years, it has got:

- 4 apparel brands including Wrogn
- Revenues of 243 crores
- Investments from Flipkart & Accel

A thread on USPL

1/

Anjana Reddy, a 24 year old student returned to India after finishing her Masters from US

During her time in the US, she noticed a large market for sports memorabilia and autographed merchandise

2/

2011 - Once back in India, she thought it would be a perfect idea to try given craze of cricket in India

Through a contact, she managed to get a meeting with VC firm, Accel. They liked the idea but kept a condition for investment that Anjana should rope in a celebrity first

3/

Anjana decided that it should be Sachin Tendulkar and chased for an appointment with him for the next 15 months

Finally, she got a meeting and was able to onboard SRT to endorse the company. And he also picked up close to 6% stake in USPL

4/

2012 - She setup Collectabillia, an e-commerce site which sold autographed merchandise of sports celebs like Tendulkar.

Received an initial investment of 17.5 crores INR from Accel to run the operations

5/

Contrary to what she thought, the site failed to perform. Unlike Americans, Indians were not willing to pay for memorabilia. They wanted such items for free

But in November 2013, the site saw a huge Inflow of orders for Sachin's Tshirts following his retirement

6/

Though the 10000 orders were not enough to sustain the business, Anjana decided that there was an opportunity in apparel associated with the celebrities

She shut down Collectabilia and started focusing on creating apparel brands

7/

She decided to create apparel brands endorsed by celebrities in order to stand out in the crowded market

She roped in Virat Kohli for menswear brand, Wrogn. Shraddha Kapoor for Women's brand, Imara. Later replaced by Jacqueline. Kriti Sanon for Western wear brand, Ms Taken

8/

The idea of linking the product with a celebrity worked well. It was portrayed as if these brands were the fashion line of these celebrities

2014 - the company did 24 crores in revenues by the end of the year

9/

USPL developed offline and online channel partners like Shoppers Stop, Myntra and Flipkart

It opened close to 60 exclusive stores by 2018

The celebrities charged a licensing fees in the range of 3-8% of the total sales

10/

The company hit 100 crores in revenues by 2017. And received funding from Flipkart as well

Wrogn emerged as the best performing brand for the company. And recently Virat Kohli also picked up close to 1% stake in the company

11/

Today, USPL is present in over 750 offline retail outlets in more than 100 cities across India

In 2020, it did close to 243 crores in revenues. And as per the latest funding round, it is valued at 1200 crores INR

12/

The company has identified and scaled the idea of celebrity associated apparel. And intends to add more brands in the coming times

The most recent one being: Single endorsed by Ranbir Kapoor

13/

The company is still in losses, Anjana expects the brands to turn positive once the retail expansion is over

The succes story helped Anjana appear in the most powerful women in Fortune's business list of 2019

14/14

Sources: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fortuneindia.com/amp/story/people%252Fanjana-reddy-right-for-the-wrogn-reasons%252F103719

https://entrackr.com/2020/11/virat-kohli-backed-uspl-raises-fund-from-flipkart-revenue-jumps-to-rs-243-cr-in-fy20/#:~:text=USPL%20has%20also%20improved%20its,crore%20in%20the%20previous%20fiscal.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/companies/anjana-reddy-s-universal-sportsbiz-uses-celebrities-to-build-apparel-biz-118111800646_1.html

Since someone mentioned, its important to call out that Anjana's family owns the Deccan Chronicle group. And that might have helped her getting in touch with ppl faster