Star power meets D-St: IPO backed by Shah Rukh, Salman, Madhuri & Sachin Tendulkar to hit markets soon!

Purple Style Labs (PSL), the parent company of Pernia’s Pop-Up Shop, is likely to launch its Rs 660 crore initial public offering by the end of August, PTI reported, citing sources. The company has filed its updated draft red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India after receiving approval for the issue in January. The IPO will mark PSL’s debut in the public markets.

Promoted by Abhishek Agarwal, who owns a 27.10 per cent stake, PSL plans to use the proceeds through its wholly owned subsidiary, PSL Retail. The funds will be used mainly to meet lease liabilities for experience centres and back-end offices in India, while a part will go towards sales and marketing and the rest towards general corporate purposes. Axis Capital and IIFL Capital Services are the bankers to the issue.

From online label to omnichannel platform
PSL acquired Pernia’s Pop-Up Shop in 2018, when it was essentially a Rs 5 crore online business. Since then, the company has built an omnichannel luxury fashion platform across digital commerce and physical retail.

Pernia’s Pop-Up Shop now offers more than 2 lakh products from over 1,300 designers through its online platform and 14 experience centres across India and London. PSL is also expanding its footprint with its flagship Pernia’s Pop-Up Studio at Fort and an experience centre on Linking Road in Mumbai, along with a proposed outlet on Madison Avenue in New York.

The platform recorded gross merchandise value of more than Rs 588 crore in FY25, while its average order value stood at Rs 56,106. In FY25, the average order value at Indian stores was about 2.5 times that of the online channel, underlining the role of physical retail in premium bridal and occasion wear.

Investor base and financial performance
PSL has drawn a high-profile investor base that includes Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and his family, Madhuri Dixit, Sachin Tendulkar and Mahesh Babu. Other publicly disclosed investors include Akash Bhanshali, Mukul Agarwal, Binny Bansal and Singularity, apart from institutional investors, family offices and private investors.

PSL’s revenue rose more than 11-fold from Rs 45 crore in FY20 to Rs 508 crore in FY24, translating into an approximate compound annual growth rate of 83 per cent. Revenue, however, moderated to around Rs 490 crore in FY25. The company also focused on premiumisation, with customer numbers falling from 92,700 in FY24 to 70,650 in FY25 even as average order value increased to Rs 56,106.

Its EBITDA margin improved to 8.6 per cent in FY25 from 0.6 per cent in FY23, while sales and marketing costs declined to 6.8 per cent of revenue from 12.9 per cent. However, PSL remained loss-making, reporting a pre-tax loss of Rs 188.5 crore in FY25. Of this, Rs 122.8 crore was attributed to a one-time, non-cash employee stock option charge.

Luxury market backdrop
PSL’s proposed IPO comes amid growth in India’s wedding and luxury consumption markets. The country’s wedding industry has crossed Rs 10 lakh crore, while the wedding-wear segment is projected to reach Rs 3.4 lakh crore by FY30. India’s personal luxury market is also expected to touch Rs 2.31 lakh crore. Against this backdrop, the issue will place PSL’s revenue growth, premiumisation strategy and improving operating metrics before public-market investors as the company seeks a path to sustainable profitability.