COUTLOOT

CoutLoot, legally known as Mjvs Fashion Services Private Limited, is a Mumbai-based company founded in 2016 that has evolved its business model to meet the demands of India's retail landscape. The company was established by Jasmeet Thind, Mahima Kaul, and Vinit Jain, who leveraged their collective backgrounds in retail and technology. Thind's experience included brand building at Hindustan Unilever, Kaul worked as a research analyst at Nielsen, and Jain brought tech entrepreneurship and retail experience from his family's business. The initial idea sparked from Thind's personal need to sell unused branded clothing, leading to the creation of a platform to address overflowing closets.

Initially launched as a consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace for pre-owned fashion, CoutLoot facilitated the sale of unused branded and boutique items, handling the entire process from pickup and quality check to delivery. This model targeted the aspirations of young, price-conscious consumers in Tier II and III cities by making brands more accessible and included a 'bargain' feature to mimic offline shopping behaviors. The platform gained early traction, securing seed funding in 2016 and attracting celebrities to sell items from their personal closets, which helped to destigmatize the concept of buying second-hand goods.

Recognizing the larger opportunity in India's vast unorganized retail sector, CoutLoot pivoted to an offline-to-online (O2O) social commerce platform. This strategic shift focuses on empowering small, offline sellers and street vendors to establish an online presence. The company provides a suite of services including automatic inventory cataloging, logistics, payment processing, and supply chain support. It has also developed a B2B wholesale platform that connects these small retailers directly with manufacturers, aiming to eliminate middlemen and improve profit margins. To overcome language barriers, the app incorporates a translator that supports 12 different languages for buyer-seller communication.

More recently, CoutLoot has ventured into the SaaS space with "CoutLoot Swipe," a video commerce platform. This service enables sellers to create and share short-form videos and live shows to market their products, using generative AI to simplify content creation and automatically generate product details. The business generates revenue through commissions on sales, which vary based on how quickly a product is sold, and from on-platform advertisements. The company has raised a total of $18.3 million over 10 funding rounds, with its latest Series A round in April 2024. The platform supports over 1.3 million sellers and aims to serve the non-grocery retail market, estimated to be worth $300 billion in India.

Keywords: social commerce, offline-to-online, O2O platform, recommerce, fashion marketplace, B2B wholesale, e-commerce enabler, video commerce, generative AI for retail, small business digitization, retail tech, Indian retail market, hyperlocal shopping, mobile commerce, seller platform, supply chain solutions, fintech for retail, cross-border e-commerce, unbranded retail, Tier II city market