Indian lifestyle brand The Souled Store has secured Rs 135 crore (approximately $16.46 million) in a round led by mid-market PE firm Xponentia Capital Partners, per an announcement.

The round has also seen the participation of the company’s existing backers, Elevation Capital and RPSG Capital.

The Souled Store plans to use the corpus to expand its operations into new categories and launch over 100 stores pan India within the next 2 years. It also plans to use a part of the proceeds to offer a buyback of 100% of vested employee options.

Founded in 2013, The Souled Store claims to have an annualised revenue of over Rs 450 crore GMV.

Currently, 70% of the company’s revenue comes from its app/website, 15% from its offline stores, and 15% from online marketplaces.

Going forward, The Souled Store plans to ramp up its presence in tier 2 & 3 cities in India. Currently, as much as 60% of its revenue comes from outside the top 10 cities.

“We are also expanding our offline presence & intend to create destination stores that would excite our customers. The Souled Store further aims to reach Rs 1500 crore in revenue over the next three years and then go public,” said Vedang Patel, CEO, The Souled Store.

Meanwhile, PR Srinivasan, Managing Partner at Xponentia Capital Partners added that the firm “seeks to work with entrepreneurial teams that are setting new standards to disrupt their markets & create high-growth business models.”

In an earlier interview with DealStreetAsia, he had said that Xponentia wants to work with first-generation entrepreneurs in sectors such as financial and business services, healthcare, consumer and retail.

Xponentia is currently on the road to raise capital for its second fund that it expects to close by June this year.

While Srinivasan had declined to comment on the final corpus the firm is looking to raise, sources had told DealStreetAsia that it could be around Rs 1000 crore (approximately $122 million), surpassing the initial target of Rs 750 crore.

Headquartered in Mumbai, Xponentia was set up in 2018 by the investment teams of Carlyle, Citigroup Venture Capital International, and HSBC Private Equity to address the paucity of capital in the Indian mid-market corporate sector – both in terms of debt and equity.

Its portfolio companies are Altigreen (commercial electric vehicle maker), Zype (new-age fintech platform), and Easy Home Finance, among others.