Introduction

Turms is a technology-driven clothing company that creates cutting-edge clothing with superior materials, eco-friendliness, and distinctive features. They have a range of products having certain features that make them unique on their own. Turms is an established clothing line that was once founded by a separate person. In 2022, the present founder relaunched the business after purchasing it. Turms offers clothing for all genders, and these are a few of their well-liked items:

1. Shirts that resist stains

2. Anti-odor/stain Polo shirts

3. Thirty Days without washing Jeans

4. 7 Days of odourless Socks

They create intelligent clothing by utilising technology. Their hydrophobic technology enables properties like anti-stain, antibacterial, antifungal, and anti-odor to be included in their apparel range. Additionally, they sell jeans that last 30 days without needing to be washed. Seven-day no-smell socks are the newest addition to their collection. The founder wants Turms to become an internationally recognised, inventive, and creative brand.

Turms uses its own intellectual property and technology to provide odour-resistant, cooling, wicking, stain-repellent, and daily wear clothing. Their clothes use less water and detergent to wash and do not need to be done as often as regular clothing. For men, the Turms clothing line consists of track trousers, t-shirts and jeans; for women, it consists of t-shirts and leggings. Turms' primary target market consists of young Indian workers who lack the time and resources to wash their own clothing. The brand is aimed at people who work long hours and make long commutes in addition to taking care of their everyday tasks. In October 2018, Girish Mathrubootham, the founder of Freshworks, and several other investors contributed INR 6.3 crore to the business.

A group of seasoned executives with backgrounds in e-commerce, apparel, and nanotechnology lead the company. These individuals include Vineesh Chadha, a former COO of Colour Plus, Brand Head of Louis Philippe and Allen Solly, Subhraneel Saikia, an M.Tech in Nanotechnology, Sandeep Kataria, a former VP of Marketing at Voonik, and Anil Dhondalay, an experienced apparel manufacturer and designer with ten years of experience.

Founder Journey

Surender Singh Rajpurohit is the founder of Turms, former CXO of Volvo-Eicher CV, South Africa, laid the foundation for TURMS. Before this he was working with Voonik. He has worked with many companies like Voonik, Heylos, Nextbigwhat & others. He holds PG degree from Indian Institute of Management, Shillong and Bachelor's degree from Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar.

Surender has also worked for many automobile manufacturers including Honda and Hyundai. He also worked with Volvo Group for a long time and also served the company as the CEO. In April 2022, Surender founded Unwind Minds whose flagship brand is Turms which is a highly innovative apparel with unique properties.

The brand’s mission is bold – to transform the landscape of lifestyle fashion which is the popular intelligent apparel fashion brand.

Bangalore is home to TURMS, an inventive Indian fashion company established in 2016 by Surender S. Rajpurohit. Well-known for its clever clothing, TURMS uses state-of-the-art technology to combine fashion and functionality with attributes like odour- and stain-repellent materials. Their innovative designs and dedication to sustainability have catapulted them into the fashion world.

Business Model & Financials of Turms

In 2016, TURMS was established as a performance-driven fast fashion brand and quickly gained traction. In April 2017, Turms Denims, their first product, went on sale, and by November 2017, it has reached every state and union territory in India. By January 2018, the brand has exceeded INR 30 million in sales.

Turms provides smart clothing with unique qualities including cooling, stain resistance, wicking, and resistance to odours by utilising its unique nanotechnology in the manufacturing process. Turms clothing uses less water and detergent to wash and does not need to be done as often as regular clothing. For men, Turms' merchandise selection consists of track trousers, t-shirts and jeans; for women, it consists of t-shirts and leggings. These garments require little upkeep and offer great comfort.

"Young companies like Turms are making waves in the clothing business and carve out a position for themselves with their distinct line of smart clothes. Freshworks CEO and founder Girish Mathrubootham stated, "The company has shown exponential growth in the last year while maintaining quality and consistency."

Turms says it has seen a lot of traction from both new and returning customers in the past year and is expected to break even in the next six to nine months.

MS Dhoni, the captain cool of India, is also seen sporting a Turms anti-odour and anti-coffee stain Polo t-shirt, for which the company expressed gratitude on LinkedIn. They are overjoyed to see MS Dhoni, their favourite player, sporting their TURMS-Intelligent clothing. This anti coffee stain and anti odour polo T-shirt (Patented Tech with Aleo vera) looks amazing on him. They really appreciate being a devoted customer and supporter of their company.

After purchasing it in October 2022, they launched this new business, bringing in ₹57 lakhs in revenue for the fiscal year 2022–2023. Turms generated ₹9.72 lakhs in profits from their ₹86 lakhs in revenue when they closed last month, which would have been October 2023. They project that FY23–24 would end with between ₹10–12 Crores in revenue and ₹70–80 Lakhs in profit. Ninety percent of their sales originate from their website, with the remaining 10% coming from Amazon. By March 2024, they want to reach ₹2 crores in monthly sales and ₹25 lakhs in net profits. The company lost ₹1.2 crores overall in FY22–23, mostly due to marketing expenses.

Turms does not have a price advantage, but Surender said that there is still a strong market for their products.

On average, their tech products are 50% more expensive than regular products. Their jeans sell for ₹3000, and their shirts sell for ₹999. Their sales returns and RTO are only at 10%. Surender shared that cricketer MS Dhoni also uses their shirts.

Shark Tank India Pitch and Deal

Turms is an Indian apparel startup that appeared on Shark Tank India Season 3 Episode 4.

Being an investor in Turms during its previous owner's ownership, Peyush Bansal was eager to meet the founder. The previous team was not responding to Peyush. In his opening remarks, Surender Singh Rajpurohit mentioned that he had recently taken over as Turms' new founder. Peyush should get in touch with the original founders to inquire about the status of his money, as he simply purchased the brand and not the company.

Following that, Surender Singh gave a product demonstration, and the sharks were pleased by the technology and quality. Following the first pitch, the founder of Turms demanded INR 1.2 crores for 2% share at an INR 60 crores valuation.

Here are a few significant exchanges he had with the Sharks as Azhar Iqubal (founder and CEO of Inshorts) enquired about his acquisition strategy and the amount of business value he obtained.

When Peyush Bansal (Co-founder and CEO of Lenskart.com) enquired as to why the original founders had stopped responding to his mails, Surender Singh gave the full explanation. The founder provided Vineeta Singh (Co-founder & CEO - Sugar Cosmetics) with the technical facts so she could learn how their technology functions. Anupam Mittal (Founder & CEO - People Group, Shaadi.com) was pleased with the technology but found their designs to be unimpressive. Aman Gupta (Co-founder and CMO - boAt) stated that he made the first offer since he believed the founder taught him a lot about execution.

Following all of the talks, Aman Gupta, Anupam Mittal, Azhar Iqubal, and Vineeta Singh made several offers to Surender Singh. The founder was only left with Azhar Iqubal's offer, which he accepted because he was not interested in a royalty arrangement. Azhar Iqubal, , offered Turms INR 1.2 Crores for 4% ownership at a 30 Crore valuation.

Conclusion

TURMS' successful Rs 1.2 crore deal with Inshorts CEO Azhar reflects the growing recognition of intelligent apparel in the market. This strategic partnership not only highlights TURMS' innovation in the fashion industry but also signifies the potential for technology-driven solutions to reshape traditional sectors. As both companies join forces, it will be intriguing to witness the impact of this collaboration on the evolving landscape of smart and sustainable clothing.