Magicpin Raises $7 Mn Series B From Lightspeed, Others

Gurugram-based hyperlocal discovery platform magicpin has raised $7 Mn Series B funding from existing investor Lightspeed India Partners, Waterbridge Ventures, and two global family offices.

The round also saw participation from Srivatsan Rajan, (Chairman of Bain and Co India) and Sahil Barua (CEO of Delhivery).

Bejul Somaia, MD, Lightspeed India Partners said, “The vast majority of commerce is, and will continue to be, transacted offline. Magicpin’s metrics reflect early but exceptional success in capturing smartphone-wielding users and directing their offline spend to participating merchants while creating compelling ‘hooks’ that cause users to engage and transact with unusually high frequency through the app.”

Magicpin was founded in August 2015, by former Nexus Venture Partners VP Brij Bhushan, and Anshoo Sharma, former Venture Partner at Lightspeed India Partners. It is a local discovery, rewards and commerce platform.

The startup is a platform for merchants and brands to engage and provide personalised offers to their customers. The merchants pay a recurring platform fee and a per-transaction charge for the business that magicpin drives to them.

Its user community, known as ‘magicians’ share their local experiences through picture stories that inspire other users to have those experiences. The user experiences are across categories like restaurants, nightlife, beauty and fashion through pictures. For their spending, users get rewarded in ‘magicpin points’ that can be used to buy more services and experiences at magicpin partner merchants. Magicpin is currently live in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai.

The startup will use the newly raised funds to enhance the product, strengthen the leadership team, and to expand across categories and geographies.

Commenting on the funding, Anshoo Sharma, co-founder & CEO, magicpin said “Over the last 12 months, we have invested in building a product that delivers strong user retention and purchase frequency and validating unit economics at a neighbourhood level.  This infusion of funds will help us scale across cities and categories.”

As per a company statement, magicpin has grown 7x in the last 12 months to reach $40 Mn in annual business that it drives to its merchant base. The startup claims to have over 1 Mn users who have shared 5 million+ experiences and are active on the app, with average daily sessions of more than 30 minutes.

In February 2016, magicpin had raised $3 Mn in Series A round of funding from Lightspeed. In May 2016, it became a part of the second batch of Indian startups that joined the Launchpad Accelerator programme at Google Headquarters in Silicon Valley, California. In September 2016, Nearbuy (formerly Groupon India) raised about $2 Mn (INR 15 Cr) venture debt from BlackSoil Capital. Other startups that compete with magicpin in this segment include Little, PocketIn, CouponDunia among others.