Forthelume · India · Worldwide

Forthelume

Fashion’s first platform built for the designer — not the brand.

Investment Proposal2026

For YouN°01

One photo of you.
Seconds later — this.

No fitting room. No photographer. Forthelume turns a photograph of the garment and a photograph of you into a working 3D try-on — the exact experience a shopper on the platform sees, generated end to end by our own pipeline.

Not a mockup. The product — live, with you in it.

The garment

You

The ThesisN°02

Independent designers sell here.
You try their work on in 3D —
before you ever buy.

Instagram promotes. Myntra sells brands. Amazon sells everything. None of them does this. A new category — not a better store.

The ProblemN°03

Talent was never the barrier. Capital was.

₹10,00,000+

The cost to start a clothing label today — inventory, manufacturing, distribution, marketing — with no guarantee of a first sale. And an estimated 9 in 10 new fashion brands don’t survive five years. This isn’t an India problem. It’s a global one.

Designers have no real platform. Instagram is built for attention, not commerce.

ii.

Buyers have no way to find them. Myntra and Amazon sell big brands, not independent designers.

iii.

And no one can see how a garment looks on them before buying — the biggest reason people still shop offline.

9 in 10

new fashion brands fail within five years

Industry estimate — Sourcing Journal; Blue Associates Sportswear.

The ShiftN°04

The market already moved.
The infrastructure did not.

50M

Luxury customers lost, 2022–2024. Gucci −35% brand value in 2025. Aspirational buyers priced out.

Bain & Company × Altagamma 2024; Interbrand Best Global Brands 2025

47%

Of Gen Z spend goes to fashion & lifestyle. India’s Gen Z drives 43% of consumer spending — and shuns logos for identity.

BCG × Snap Inc. 2024; Redseer, Gen Z: Defining Trends 2026

$109B

India D2C e-commerce, 2026. Growing at 24% a year.

Mordor Intelligence, India D2C E-commerce Market 2026

Cannes. Met Gala.

Independent designers are the new status. Branded is middle class. Designer is the flex.

The cultural signal — red carpets have moved before retail has

Consumers left the brands. Designers are ready. The platform does not exist.

The FieldN°05

Everyone holds one piece. We hold all of it.

Forthelume

Instagram

Myntra / Ajio

Pernia’s / Aza

NJAL / W&B

Independent designers, in one place

Buy directly, in one place

2D virtual try-on

3D virtual try-on

We create the 3D — from a single photo

Zero inventory, shipping or marketing for the designer

Start a label for ₹0

One column is complete. That is the entire opportunity.

Without PrecedentN°06

The pieces exist. The combination exists only here.

The only place to discover, try on, buy — and be manufactured. One stack, one platform.

2D and 3D virtual try-on, inside commerce — a first for independent designer fashion.

III

We create the 3D from a single photograph — or designers upload their own garment files.

Designers sell with no inventory, no shipping, no marketing. They begin at ₹0.

We manufacture on demand — karigar ateliers in Delhi NCR, scaled through our ZYOD partnership.

The MakingN°07

A photograph,
turned in your hands.

Upload a flat photo of a garment. We turn it into a rotatable, print-accurate 3D piece you can try on — in about thirty seconds. No marketplace offers this to independent designers.

It works today — built in-house across web, iOS and Android.

Try it yourself →

The garment

The wearer

↓

Live try-on demo

Live 3D · drag to rotate

The LoopN°08

The designer touches none of the hard parts.

Publish

Upload a design, in 2D or 3D.

Try on

The shopper sees it on themselves.

III

Buy

One place. One checkout.

Make

We manufacture on demand.

Deliver

We ship it, anywhere.

Earn

The designer is paid.

They design. We are the infrastructure for everything else.

The EvidenceN°09

Already built. By two founders.
With no outside capital.

Web, iOS and Android — all three, built in-house.

The full 2D & 3D try-on pipeline — proven, in production.

Manufacturing secured — karigar ateliers + ZYOD partnership.

Incorporated — Forthelume Private Limited (MCA).

Web 100% · iOS 95%

≈ 55.18

per 3D Try-On

≈ ₹7.18

per 2D Try-On

We are not raising to build. We are raising to launch.

The FoundersN°10

Two founders. Three platforms.
Zero outside capital.

Dhruva Chauhan

Founder · CEO & CTO

Built the entire platform — web, Android, iOS — largely solo. Production engineer: systems on 60M+ records, 80,000+ API calls a day. Designed the 2D/3D try-on pipeline end to end.

Tushar Upadhyay

Co-founder · COO

Owns operations and manufacturing. Built the karigar network in Delhi NCR, leads the ZYOD manufacturing partnership, runs designer onboarding and fulfilment.

At pre-seed, you invest in people. We have already shipped what most teams pitch.

The TerritoryN°11

A $1.8 trillion market —
with a category missing.

Global apparel is a $1.8T market. Our beachhead: India’s $109B D2C market, growing 24% a year. Built for the world — proven in India first.

$1.8T

Global apparel, 2025
Grand View Research

$109B

India D2C e-commerce, 2026
24% CAGR — Mordor Intelligence

Zero

Platforms combining discovery, try-on
& manufacturing for independent designers

Designers who make their own

They sell on the platform. We take a commission on every sale.

Designers who only design

We manufacture and fulfil. They earn a royalty on every piece.

The designer always sets the price. We hold zero inventory — and earn on every transaction.

The AskN°12

₹ 35 Lakhs to launch.
Twelve months of runway.

Where the capital goes

27% — Founder comp: two founders, full-time, 12 months. ₹40K each/mo, below market.
23% — Demand & marketing: Reels, Meta & Google ads to win early designers and buyers.
21% — Sales hire: converting the designer waitlist into onboarded sellers.
19% — Infrastructure: compute, 3D/2D rendering, AI generation, database, CDN.
10% — Anonymous

Twelve months from now

Launched in India — web, Android, iOS.
200+ independent designers publishing.
The first 1,000 orders, fulfilled end to end.
On-demand manufacturing, proven at scale.

Development is finished and paid for. This capital buys the launch — and the category.

The IntentionN°13

The place where every fashion student publishes their first collection — for ₹0.

We are building the beginning of independent fashion — worldwide. The product is built and working. We’d like to walk you through it — live.

Let’s talk →See the product

Dhruva Chauhan · Co-founder · Tushar Upadhyay · Co-founder

admin@forthelume.black· forthelume.black

Forthelume

One photo of you.Seconds later — this.

Independent designers sell here.You try their work on in 3D —before you ever buy.

The market already moved.The infrastructure did not.

Everyone holds one piece. We hold all of it.

The pieces exist. The combination exists only here.

A photograph,turned in your hands.

The designer touches none of the hard parts.

Already built. By two founders.With no outside capital.

Two founders. Three platforms.Zero outside capital.

A $1.8 trillion market —with a category missing.

₹ 35 Lakhs to launch.Twelve months of runway.

One photo of you.
Seconds later — this.

Independent designers sell here.
You try their work on in 3D —
before you ever buy.

The market already moved.
The infrastructure did not.

A photograph,
turned in your hands.

Already built. By two founders.
With no outside capital.

Two founders. Three platforms.
Zero outside capital.

A $1.8 trillion market —
with a category missing.

₹ 35 Lakhs to launch.
Twelve months of runway.