Exclusive: Nitro Commerce Raises $5 Mn To Scale International Operations

AI-based marketing service provider Nitro Commerce has secured $5 Mn (INR 44.9 Cr) in a Series A funding round led by Cornerstone Ventures.

The round also saw participation from Ankurit Capital, Grand Anicut Angel Fund, Equentis Wealth Advisory Services, India Accelerator & Finvolve, Razorpay Ventures and Rukum Capital.

The startup intends to utilise the fresh capital to boost platform-led growth, strengthen AI and agentic capabilities and scale international operations as well as bringing in new hires.

“The entire fundraise is to scale the business. We want to double down on our Indian operations, as the majority of our revenue comes from India,” Nitro’s cofounder and CEO Umair told Inc42, adding that the startup has achieved a $5 Mn in ARR and is now targeting $10 Mn. 

“We also want to launch some of the products internationally, and already have a few customers from the UAE and the US.,” he added.

Founded in 2023 by Mohammed, Shamail Tayyab and Pratik Anand, Nitro Commerce offers a suite of AI-enabled marketing platforms that directly impact the topline for brands. The D2C brands’ revenue growth is achieved by opting for intent-based targeting, privacy-first compliance, and cross-channel performance measurement for their ad campaigns.

The Delhi NCR-based startup operates businesses like NitroX, Nitro Ads, Nitro SSO, Nitro Rewards, Nitro Capital, and Nitro Recover.

Nitro Commerce set out to fix a core flaw in digital advertising: generic, cookie-led targeting that misses real consumer intent. The startup built its tech stack on the open internet and includes independent apps, websites and other platforms. This enables brands to own customer data across stages, measure cross-channel campaign performance, reach audiences beyond social and search and gain greater visibility into where ads run and what data powers them.

Through Nitro Ads, the startup enables brands to reach high-intent users across food delivery apps, payment platforms, OTT and CTV channels, bypassing Meta and Google. 

Built on first-party data and real-time intent signals, Nitro offers outcome-linked pricing and full-funnel analytics. 

The startup recently claimed that it has been able to generate over INR 20 Cr in gross merchandise value (GMV), matched users to 120 Mn shopping user profiles and enabled over 5 Bn in ads impressions on a monthly basis. Brands including Rare Rabbit, Dot & Key, Pepperfry, ClayCo, Kapiva, Blue Tokai, VIP Industries, Perfora, are part of Nitro’s network of over 2,500 brands using AI-based intent advertising methods to streamline their marketing efforts.

Mohammed told Inc42 that the startup is rolling out a new offering, Nitro Pulse, which it claims to have piloted with ten clients recently. Nitro Pulse, an LLM software, fine-tuned and locally hosted model is planted on physical servers and is trained on the company’s catalog data.