Hyperlocal Ecommerce Platform LoveLocal Raises $18 Mn in Pre Series B

Indian hyper-local ecommerce platform LoveLocal has raised $18 Mn in a Pre-Series B funding round led by Vulcan Capital. 

Klarna Founder & CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s Flat Capital, Alumni Ventures Group and Commerce Ventures participated in this round of funding. 

Angel investors Nami Zarringhalam, cofounder of Truecaller; Sriram Krishnan, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz; Anna Lambert, Director of Product Acceleration at Shopify; Sarah Jones Simmer, CEO of Found & ex-COO of Bumble; Arpan Sheth, Senior Partner at Bain & Company, also participated.

Founded in January 2020, LoveLocal empowers local retailers by digitising their business. The startup serves over 35 cities and over 1,300 pin codes across the country. It has signed up over 100,000 retailers selling 55,000 products across 145 categories and has fulfilled more than 1 Mn orders continuing to grow at a rate of 35% month-over-month.

“We have always believed in the local retailer. They win on every consumer consideration: service, quality, product selection, value, credit, free delivery and speed of delivery,” said Akanksha Hazari, founder and CEO of LoveLocal. “LoveLocal is bridging the technology gap to ensure that our local retailers not just survive but thrive in India 2.0 and beyond,” she added.

“In the next 3 years, LoveLocal aims to take 1 million local retailers online and power the largest hyper-local e-commerce platform in India. It will use the Pre-Series B funds to invest in product development, key hires, and accelerate growth and expansion across Tier 1-3 cities across India,” added Hazari, explaining the startup’s plans to utilise the freshly raised funds. 

LoveLocal provides a full-stack digitisation platform to local retailers that they can use to take their business online and get actionable insights that can help them manage it more efficiently. On the consumer side, LoveLocal customers can discover retail outlets in their neighbourhood. 

According to the Inc42 Plus D2C market report, the Indian retail market is worth $1.2 Tn in 2021 and is expected to grow to $1.7 Bn by 2026 at a CAGR 0f 7.8%. By that time, ecommerce will capture 11.4% of the entire market at around $200 Bn.

The number of online shoppers in the country will continue to grow at a CAG of 28.5% to reach 350 Mn by FY2025. The online FMCG market is poised to reach $21 Bn by 2025.

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