[Funding] ShopG raises 1.5 Mn USD Seed round from Orios Venture Partners and RPSG Ventures

ShopG, a social commerce platform, announced the closure of its seed round of $1.5Mn. Orios Venture Partners and RPSG Ventures led the seed round. The event also saw the participation of angel investors like Rajesh Yabaji - CEO Blackbuck, Raghunandan G - Ex CEO Taxi for Sure, Prasanth Nair- Ex Flipkart, Alibaba. The company will use the funds to expand the community leader network in Tier 3/4 cities. It also aims to scale technology, build a supply of small regional brands and create a suite of D2C products.

Abut ShopG

ShopG, the year-old startup was founded by Ankur Arora, Abhishek Mishra, Pranay Suwalka and Yogesh Nehra. The startup partners with regional/small brands that offer good quality products, but have had limited distribution reach. These products are made available and aware to customers via the community leaders at great bargains.

The founders state that next 500 mn internet customers, from Tier3/4 cities of India, who earn an average household income of Rs. 25000-30000 per month, prefer assisted buying from someone they trust and have low Average Order Values (AOV) < Rs 250; making it impossible for existing E-commerce 1.0 players like Amazon, Flipkart etc to service them with high customer acquisition, & supply chain costs. The startup aims to bring the next 500 mn internet users in India to the mainstream, organized retail e-commerce. For this, they are building a network of local community leaders, working with regional brands and building a vernacular, browse based, easy, fun and engaging social shopping platform.

From the leaders

“Social commerce is currently at $1.5bn - $2bn in India and will scale to $25bn by 2025 or earlier on the back of smartphone ownership that has crossed 500mn in 2020 accelerated by COVID. Most of this growth has come in Tier 3 cities like a Solapur, Bareilly or a Tumkur. In China, social commerce makes up nearly 12% of retail and has created 4 unicorns over the last 5 years with more than 20 funded companies. The growth took off with growing smartphone penetration which is bound to happen in India as well. Daily household needs comprise the largest chunk of this. We are excited to partner with the ShopG team which has developed a profitable model bringing the power of micro-entrepreneurs, digital-ready customers and tailored set of small brands including their own, on a common tech platform,” said Anup Jain, Managing Partner, Orios Venture Partners.

“We are very confident about the growth potential of social commerce in India. With smartphone and internet penetrating the smaller cities in India, this TAM is now more receptive to transacting online and buying branded products provided the platform can instil trust and authenticity. ShopG’s business model offers a unique way of providing this and service the low AOV Tier 3/4 customers with industry-leading CACs and logistics cost. We are thrilled to partner with the ShopG team who have created a sustainable business model utilising a strong network of community leaders. We are also very excited about the opportunity for ShopG to leverage their reach and understanding of what customers want in Tier 3/ 4 cities of India to launch several private-label brands such as Ohayo.” said Abhishek Goenka, Head & CIO, RPSG Ventures