99labels Co-Founder Ishita Swarup Passes Away Just two years into the business, it raised INR 16 crore from Info Edge and Bikhchandani, but it didn't go well

On July 16th, the IMT Alumni Association, Ghaziabad shared about the passing of Ishita Swarup, co-founder and CEO of 99labels, on its X handle. The tragic news was reshared by Sanjeev Bikhchandani, vice-chairman and founder of Info Edge, on July 18th.

"This is tragic and premature. We had invested in Ishita's startup 99labels more than a decade back. The business didn't pan out the way we had all hoped, and we took a write-off. Since then, we lost touch," Bikhchandani's X post read.

This is tragic and premature. We had invested in Ishita's startup 99labels more than a decade back. The business didn't pan out the way we had all hoped and we took a write off. Since then we lost touch. I remember her as a very nice and soft spoken person. A gentle soul. As an… https://t.co/VH8JfE7TH7

— Sanjeev Bikhchandani (@sbikh) July 18, 2024

Ishita Swarup launched 99labels in September 2009 with co-founders Anchal Jain and Ankur Prakash with a seed capital of INR one crore. Ninety Nine Labels Pvt. Ltd was an online shopping portal that offered deep discounts on branded clothes, footwear, watches, and other items. According to its founders, 99labels was able to make significant growth in global markets, including Paris and New York, from its inception.

The business model of 99labels was inspired by Vente-Privee, a France-based flash sales shopping portal that pioneered the flash model. This model offers limited-period deep discounts on products to website members, a business model that Swarup followed.

"The flash sales model was extremely successful worldwide as an e-commerce format. It was popular across the world - Singapore, Brazil, Russia, France, etc.," Swarup explained in her previous interviews.

This concept was new to the Indian market, and she was the first entrepreneur in India to introduce this model. Just two years into the business, it raised INR 16 crore from Info Edge and Bikhchandani.

However, issues started cropping as early as 2010-11 when the e-commerce space began overcrowding. This was coupled with a mega-investment of INR 201 crore in its rival, Fashion and You. In early 2012, it raised another round of investment of INR five crore. But it was not enough to compete with the capital-heavy rival.

However, in 2014, the company faced some hurdles, leading its investor, Info Edge, to write off its total investment of INR 29.3 crore in the company. "The value of the investment is less than what we invested," Bikhchandani mentioned earlier in the media.

After this, 99labels changed its business model and tried to survive in the e-commerce market, but it failed. "I have been here for three and a half years, making mistakes, and have learned a lot of lessons," Swarup said in previous interviews.

The last updates of 99labels date back to 2012.

The cause of her death remains unknown, and not much was known about Swarup post the decline of 99labels.