Bangalore/Mumbai, 11th March ‘2026: Former Myntra & AJIO executive Rajesh Narkar and H&M India executive Louis Coucke have come together to launch Confluxe, a technology-enabled brand operating platform designed to help global fashion and lifestyle brands enter and scale in India. The company has raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by Wavemaker Partners, with participation from Kriscore Capital as the co-investor.
Confluxe aims to address a structural gap in India’s fashion and lifestyle ecosystem. While the country’s consumer demand for global brands continues to grow rapidly, the operational pathway for international brands to enter and scale in India remains fragmented, capital-intensive, and difficult to execute. Confluxe positions itself as the operating layer between global brands and the Indian market, integrating market entry strategy, digital commerce, data led merchandising and enabling a localised ‘Make in India’ supply chain into a single platform designed to help brands scale in a more efficient and disciplined way.
The company aims to address a structural supply-side gap in India’s fashion ecosystem, where strong consumer demand for global brands exists but the path to market remains fragmented and difficult to scale profitably. Highlighting the launch, Louis Coucke, Co-Founder and COO, Confluxe, said, “One of the key learnings for us has been that brands do not just want access to channels in India—they want a partner that brings together local execution, commercial discipline, and the right technology backbone. The strong response from brands, advisors, and the broader ecosystem reinforces the need for a more modern approach to brand entry. This capital will help us launch our first partnerships, strengthen the team, and build the platform infrastructure that underpins the Confluxe model.”
Adding on, Rajesh Narkar, Co-Founder and CEO, Confluxe, said “One of the biggest opportunities in India’s fashion market today lies on the supply side. While consumer demand for global brands continues to grow rapidly, the infrastructure required to bring those brands into the market and scale them effectively is still evolving. At Confluxe, we are focused on building that supply layer by combining technology, commerce, and local execution into a single operating platform. Closing our pre-seed round with Wavemaker Partners and Kriscore Capital reflects confidence in both the market opportunity and the platform we are building. Our focus now is on launching our first brand partners and building the technology and operational foundations to help them scale in India.”
The newly raised capital will be used to launch the company’s first brand partnerships, build its technology and data infrastructure, and expand its core team across brand operations, commerce, and growth.
Commenting on the association, Phuong Tran, Principal at Wavemaker Partners, said:
“India is rapidly emerging globally as the most important growth markets for fashion and lifestyle brands, yet premium and global brands remain significantly underpenetrated, accounting for only about 12% of the market compared to roughly 30% in mature markets such as the US, Europe, and China. Confluxe creates a new pathway for high quality international brands that are well loved in their home markets but not yet present in India, enabling them to enter and scale in a capital efficient way while giving India’s increasingly sophisticated consumers access to a broader set of global brands previously difficult to discover locally. We believe the founders’ experience across Myntra, AJIO, and H&M uniquely positions them to build this platform.”
Nilesh Balakrishnan, Managing Partner at Kriscore Capital, added: “India is one of the most exciting consumer markets in the world, but for international fashion and lifestyle brands, ambition and access are two very different things. Building that bridge requires founders who have lived on both sides. Rajesh has navigated every meaningful phase of eCommerce in India, from early category creation through to scale. Louis brings the brand side: having built and operated H&M India, he knows what it takes for an international brand to enter and succeed without losing its identity. India is not a shopify-and-ship market. Confluxe stitches together D2C, marketplaces, offline, and operations on a unified platform, and this is precisely the team to build it.”
As global brands increasingly look towards India for long-term growth, Confluxe aims to become the cross border platform that bridges global ambition with local execution, creating a smarter, faster, and more scalable pathway for brands to build in the Indian market.
