1-India Family Mart plans expansion, to go public in 2 yrs

Value fashion retail chain 1-India Family Mart Wednesday said it aims to clock a revenue of Rs 2,300 crore in the next five years and plans to go public in the next two years, a top company official said. It also plans to expand its stores to 350 in the next five years, the company said in a statement.

Targeted at small towns, the company had posted a revenue of Rs 393 crore in FY19 and has 92 stores in eastern and northern India. "The category of stores in tier-IV cities has a profile different from tier III in terms of sustainable consumption, we are now aligning a relevant model for such stores which will make it easier for us to progress towards our ultimate vision of addressing the fashion needs of 75 per cent of the country's population," 1-India Family Mart Co-Founder and COO Ravinder Singh said.

The company has attracted top leadership talent as part of capability building to match the growth plans and is also investing in processes and technology while maintaining high standards of corporate governance. This is all a build-up to an IPO in two years' time, Singh said. The company had raised its first external funding worth USD 7 million from Carpediem Advisors in 2018 for investing in expansion, technology, customer relationship management, warehousing and storefront training.

It recently raised its second round of external debt funding worth Rs 20 crore, which is part of a larger fundraise in process, including a mix of debt and equity, that will fund the scaling of the business and culminating in a public issue, the statement said.