Exclusive: Sanjay Nigam On Empowering Fashion Entrepreneurs Through Pitch To Get Rich Season 2

India with a population of over 1.5 billion people never lacked creativity. From traditional artisans to home grown labels, and designers, and now sustainable creators, the country has held a plethora of such talent from centuries. But what was the link that was missing; a single platform that bridges the gap between creators, capital, and a global perspective. While Pitch To Get Rich connects emerging brands with industry leaders, FEF Miss Entrepreneur celebrates women who are building businesses proving that entrepreneurship is as important as elegance Indian pageant and business competition. With season 2 of Pitch To Get Rich returning back, Indian fashion entrepreneurs can now expect much more to take on the global stage. In an exclusive conversation with Outlook Luxe, Sanjay Nigam, Founder, Fashion Entrepreneur Fund tells us about the inspiration behind India’s first fashion entrepreneurship reality show, the growing influence of FEF.

As the founder of FEF, and also Pitch To Get Rich, what inspired you to create India’s first fashion entrepreneurship reality show?

Sanjay Nigam: The mindset of Indian fashion apart from few designers who are backed by big brands nobody has been reached to the world level, nobody is global. Yet, we talk about our culture and tradition, few things have happened in the past because we have not given a platform to our art and craft. We also talk about the entrepreneurship; there is a lot of creativity in India but not a single platform supporting those creators. If you are a hardcore person doing business, they can invest in your venture but you are related to the art and craft is very less. You can check the numbers. So, with that thought and ideas we decided to make this fund (Fashion Entrepreneur Fund) and it’s been 5 years now. First we decided to create this fund only for people related to fashion. I got a lot backlash because a fund could be anything. We then got a lot of good profiles and we have good brands with capability to go global. The thought was to make a legacy out of the fashion brands to go global.

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Could you tell us how did the idea for Pitch To Get Rich come to you, and what was the initial plan?

SN: The initial plan was to invest in brands but then two things came to my mind. Point no. 1 what kind of content are we consuming in India or the licence. Though we are watching other reality shows, it all about licencing. We were thinking that we should create content which is Indian and we can licence that content worldwide. Fashion is a segment that gels to the entire world. This Pitch to get Rich can be created anywhere. And the second point was we will invest and make a web series, put all the good names so the world is watching it and the brand is getting popularity. So it’s easy to scale the brand.

How were Karan Johar, Akshay Kumar, Manish Malhotra, and other Bollywood celebrities brought in as mentors in this venture, and could you brief us on their role?

SN: All those names are not only in my board but also visionaries. They have made everything from scratch, the might have got a legacy but they have enhanced that, so all the people have been chosen very carefully. Say a Karan Johar then you can relate fashion to him and he is an investor and a mentor. As a person, whole of India knows Akshay Kumar, and having him on board extends our reach. We also have Ravi Jaipuria, Chairperson, RJ Corp, similarly with Naveen Jindal or Vagish Pathak or other people in my board. The idea was to have a vast system not only in fashion but somebody who has a legacy. So that they these people are sitting on a table and guide a 30 year old or a 50 year old with a billion dollar business can save my 20 years immediately. We those thoughts and mindsets we created this Fashion Entrepreneurship Fund.

What are your expectations from Season 2?

SN: I have a lot of expectations from Season 2. In season 1 we invested INR 40 crore on our 13 to 14 brands and these ventures have turn a turnover of INR 200 crore in less than 2 years. If season 1 was a pilot project, so for season 2 we decided to invest INR 100 crore and this time getting 25 to 30 brands and get funding. This time we are putting this global angle trying to get licence to other countries also.

With India innovating in sustainability and technology. How do you see brands in vegan leather shaping the global perception of ‘Made in India’ fashion?

SN: Earlier, the vegan leather was difficult in India. Either one had to go China or outsouce materials. But for the past 2 years there are a lot of changes India. Now we make a lot of leather from cactus, banana. Things are changing and we have a company called ‘Vyakti’ and we make from vegan leather from cactus, olive, and eucalyptus, and 80% of sales come from the other parts of the world and not from India. There is a lot of scope and we need to work on it and the future is vegan leather and the global audience loves to buy India art.

How have the people responded so far to Pitch To Get Rich Season 2?

SN: The best response we got is ‘I want to participate.’ We received 20,000 to 25,000 applications and for this year we got 56,000 applications. This time we got applications from North-East, Kashmir, and Kota and whole India is coming to participate. We can only take minimal people but the response is tremendous.