Escape Plan raises $25 million Series A led by Jungle Ventures; IndiGo Ventures comes in as strategic investor

Escape Plan raises $25 million Series A led by Jungle Ventures; IndiGo Ventures comes in as strategic investor

• Escape Plan raised $25M Series A led by Jungle Ventures, joined by IndiGo Ventures
• Funds will expand offline retail, improve supply chain, and widen reach in India
• Escape Plan targets 200+ stores, aims to cover 90% of India's travel gear market

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Travel gear startup Escape Plan has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by existing investor Jungle Ventures, with participation from Fireside Ventures and IndiGo Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of IndiGo Airlines, which has joined the company as a strategic investor.

How will Escape Plan use the fresh capital?

The fresh capital will be deployed primarily towards accelerating offline retail expansion, strengthening supply-chain and pricing capabilities to lower category price points, and widening Escape Plan’s reach beyond the top 25–30 percent of India, founder and CEO Abhinav Pathak told Moneycontrol. The company will also invest in technology to improve availability and consistency across channels, while expanding into adjacent travel categories.

“Once we started hitting meaningful scale, the idea was to start building new territories, new categories and new geographies,” Pathak said. “That was the intent of the fundraise. We’re still a very lean team, so we also wanted to double down on building the organisation the right way.”

Who backed the round—and what is the funding history?

The Series A comes less than a year after Escape Plan raised $5 million in a seed round led by Jungle Ventures with participation from Fireside Ventures in July last year, barely two months after the company began operations.

Both Jungle Ventures and Fireside Ventures are existing investors who have doubled down in the Series A, while IndiGo Ventures has come in as a new, strategic investor.

Pathak said the fundraising process was swift. “From the first conversation to money in the bank, it took hardly two to two-and-a-half months,” he said.

How big is Escape Plan today?

Founded by Pathak, who earlier built retail-tech startup Perpule (acquired by Amazon), Escape Plan is positioning itself not as a single-brand luggage player but as a platform-led travel products company, spanning online marketplaces, direct-to-consumer channels and a growing offline retail network.

The company is currently operating at a Rs 300 crore-plus annualised revenue run rate, driven largely by luggage sales across channels. Escape Plan operates 25-plus offline stores, serves 6–7 lakh customers, and ships around two lakh pieces of luggage every month, according to the founder.

What is driving revenues, and how is the product mix evolving?

Luggage remains Escape Plan’s largest revenue contributor, but the company is now expanding into softer travel categories, including travel accessories such as neck pillows and passport covers.

“Over the next six months, we’ll bring all possible travel categories under Escape Plan,” Pathak said. “Today, we are very luggage-first, but that will change.”

How aggressive is the offline expansion plan?

A significant portion of the Series A capital will be channeled into expanding Escape Plan’s physical retail footprint, with the company targeting 200-plus stores over time.

The focus, Pathak said, is on unlocking markets where the company has so far been constrained by price points or limited physical presence.

“Today, we are restricted to the top 25–30 percent of India by geography,” he said. “The goal is to start playing in 90 percent of India. That means pulling multiple levers—pricing, stores, ecommerce penetration and marketing.”

What does IndiGo Ventures bring to the table?

IndiGo Ventures’ participation adds a strategic layer to the round, even as the specifics of collaboration are still evolving. IndiGo said Escape Plan’s focus on reliability, scale and customer experience aligns with the rapid expansion of air travel in India.

What are the challenges in scaling travel gear in India?

Despite its rapid growth, Pathak acknowledged the structural challenges of the travel gear market, which grows largely at inflationary rates and has long been dominated by incumbents.

“Once you hit Rs 300–500 crore in revenue, you become a meaningful part of the category,” he said. “From there, growth becomes harder, and mistakes become very expensive.”

Brand or platform—what is Escape Plan really building?

Escape Plan’s long-term bet is that category-led, platform-style ownership, rather than single-brand D2C plays, will create defensibility in travel gear.

“Everyone else is building brands. We’re building a platform,” Pathak said. “Like Decathlon for sports or Lenskart for eyewear, we want to solve for every travel need, across price points and geographies.”