Two senior leaders from India’s fashion and e-commerce industry have launched a new technology-enabled platform designed to help international fashion and lifestyle brands establish and expand their presence in the Indian market.
Rajesh Narkar, a former executive at Myntra and AJIO, and Louis Coucke, who previously held a leadership role at H&M India, have founded Confluxe, a cross-border operating platform aimed at simplifying market entry and scaling for global brands.
The company has raised US $1.6 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by venture capital firm Wavemaker Partners, with participation from Kriscore Capital.
Confluxe is targeting what it describes as a structural gap in India’s US $130 billion fashion and lifestyle market. While demand among Indian consumers for international brands has grown steadily in recent years, the operational process required for global labels to enter and scale in the country remains complex and fragmented.
The platform aims to act as an intermediary between international brands and the Indian retail ecosystem. It plans to combine market-entry strategy, digital commerce capabilities, data-driven merchandising and a localised “Make in India” supply chain within a single integrated system.
According to the founders, the goal is to enable global fashion companies to enter the Indian market more quickly while maintaining a capital-efficient and disciplined expansion strategy.
Louis Coucke, co-founder and chief operating officer of Confluxe, stated that the founders had learned that brands were seeking more than simple distribution access in India. He said brands increasingly wanted partners capable of delivering local execution, commercial discipline and strong technology infrastructure in a single platform.
He further noted that the response from brands, advisers and industry stakeholders had reinforced the need for a more modern approach to market entry. Coucke added that the newly raised capital would allow the company to launch its first brand partnerships, strengthen its team and build the platform infrastructure supporting the Confluxe model.
Rajesh Narkar, co-founder and chief executive officer of Confluxe, said the most significant opportunity within India’s fashion ecosystem lay on the supply side.
He explained that while consumer demand for global brands was growing rapidly, the infrastructure needed to bring those brands into the market and scale them efficiently was still evolving. Narkar said Confluxe aimed to build that missing supply layer by combining technology, commerce infrastructure and local execution within a single operating platform. He added that the successful closing of the pre-seed funding round reflected investor confidence in both the opportunity and the company’s approach.
The newly raised capital will be used to launch the company’s first brand partnerships, build technology and data infrastructure, and expand its team across brand operations, commerce and growth functions.
Investors say the platform addresses a significant opportunity within India’s fashion industry.
Phuong Tran, principal at Wavemaker Partners, said India was rapidly emerging as one of the most important growth markets for global fashion and lifestyle brands, yet international labels remained relatively underrepresented in the country.
Tran noted that global brands currently account for only about 12 per cent of India’s fashion market, compared with roughly 30 per cent in more mature markets such as the United States, Europe and China. He added that Confluxe offered a new pathway for high-quality international brands to enter and scale in India while expanding consumer access to global fashion labels.
Nilesh Balakrishnan, managing partner at Kriscore Capital, highlighted the founders’ industry experience as a key advantage. He said Narkar had navigated multiple phases of India’s e-commerce development, from early category creation to large-scale growth, while Coucke brought the perspective of an international fashion brand operator through his experience with H&M India.
Balakrishnan added that Confluxe brought together direct-to-consumer channels, online marketplaces, offline retail and operational capabilities within a unified platform tailored specifically for the Indian market.
As global fashion brands increasingly view India as a long-term growth market, Confluxe aims to position itself as a technology-enabled cross-border platform that combines commerce infrastructure, operational expertise and local execution.
The company hopes to provide international fashion and lifestyle brands with a faster and more scalable route to build a presence in India’s expanding consumer economy.
