D2C fashion startup The Souled Store has announced acquisition of apparel brand Redwolf to consolidate its dominance in the pop culture merchandise space.

However, the startup did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

The acquisition is aimed at utilising Redwolf’s expertise in fan merchandise to further enhance the startup’s products and offerings.

Founded in 2011 by Ameya Thakur, Rahul Jaisheel and Vivek Malhotra, Redwolf is a clothing brand that designs and manufactures graphic t-shirts and other accessories.

The Mumbai-based brand’s designs are mostly inspired from pop-culture and claims to have licenses of Game of Thrones, Marvel, Disney, Star Wars, Rick & Morty, Peanuts, Breaking Bad and others.

The founders will now join The Souled Store’s leadership team.

The Souled Store said in a statement that the acquisition will further help in enhancing its innovative product offerings.

“Merging with The Souled Store was the next logical step in realizing our vision of bringing the best pop culture merchandise to the Indian audience. All three of us are huge pop-culture geeks ourselves and look forward to leveraging the scale provided by The Souled Store to take the brand to greater heights.” said Malhotra.

Incorporated in 2013 by Vedang Patel, Rohin Samtaney, Aditya Sharma and Harsh Lal, started as a branded merchandise apparel brand and later morphed into its current D2C casual wear brand form.

On the acquisition, Patel said, “This acquisition will strengthen our mission to become the Home of Pop-culture in India. We are excited to co- build this shared vision with the founders of Redwolf.”

The Souled Store boasts of over 200 licenses, including One Piece, Naruto, and Marvel and it operates nearly 40 stores across India.

On the financial front, the startup turned profitable in the financial year ended March 2024 (FY24) on the back of a strong growth in its top line and improvement in margins. as against a loss of INR 16.5 Cr in FY23.

Its operating revenue surged 54.26% to INR 360.2 Cr from INR 233.5 Cr in FY23.

The development comes at a time when the Indian startup ecosystem witnessed a downturn in merger and acquisition (M&A) activities last year. As per Inc42’s report only 71 such deals were recorded in 2024.

However, it is expected that startup as more and more listed companies flex their capital. Sectors that are likely to witness the most number of M&As include — AI, edtech, ecommerce and consumer services as well as fintech.

In a most recent acquisition deal, Fintech SaaS unicorn, marking its third acquisition this year.

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