Google, PayU Back Retail Tech Startup DotPe In $27 Mn Funding Round

Gurugram-based offline-to-online (O2O) commerce platform DotPe has raised $27.5 Mn funding from Google through its $10 Bn India Digitisation Fund announced by Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in July 2020. The global tech giant had also invested $4.5 Bn in Mukesh Ambani-led Jio Platforms through this digitisation fund.

DotPe’s Series A funding round was led by the company’s early backer Prosus-owned payment and fintech business PayU, with participation from Info Edge Ventures, which has doubled its shareholding in the company.

The company plans to use the latest funding to accelerate product development, market expansion and scaling technology to meet the growing demand. “This new partnership will empower businesses (big or small) to be more discoverable, expand business avenues and conduct commerce like never before. Pandemic or not, we are here to reimagine the way offline businesses work and bring the digital revolution to the doorstep of every entrepreneur,” DotPe’s cofounder and CEO Shailaz Nag said.

Prior to this, the company had raised $8 Mn in a seed funding round led by PayU and Fosun RZ Capital in February 2020. Info Edge had also participated in the round. With this round, the Gurugram-based startup has raised $35 Mn to date.

DotPe was founded by former PayU cofounder Nag, along with former employees of the company Gyanesh Sharma and Anurag Gupta, in 2020. Nag had been associated with PayU for almost eight years, between April 2011 to September 2019, and led the global payments giant’s business India. He was also formerly a founding member of the travel and hospitality Ibibo Group, which was later acquired by MakeMyTrip in 2016.

Nag says that DotPe is a technology startup, proving novel digital transformation and commerce solutions to brick-and-mortar outlets. The company claims to have integrated with more than 10K restaurants and food courts, including leading global and domestic food and beverages (FnB) businesses.

On the small and medium businesses (SMB) front, the company’s ‘Digital Showroom’ product claims to have on-boarded over 5 Mn merchants within the six months of launch in September 2020. The product enables merchants to sell online by creating a digital storefront and accepting orders through instant messaging app WhatsApp. “In a very short time, DotPe has acquired a promising merchant base with its impeccable product experience and innovation,” PayU India’s CEO Anirban Mukherjee said in a press note.

Further, the company adds that it has over 5 Mn customers ordering and buying from the DotPe merchants through its platform. Over 38% of the daily orders are through repeat customers.