The online recommerce company, ReGlobe has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Silicon Valley-based investor, Bessemer Venture Partners and Mumbai based angel and seed venture fund, Blume Ventures.
Though the amount of funding is not officially disclosed, but, it is estimated to be about $1 Mn (about INR 6.3 Cr).
Founded in 2013, by Nakul Kumar and Mandeep Manocha, Reglobe, provides an online platform to the customers to sell old or used electronic gadgets like laptops, mobile phones and tablets.
How does ReGlobe Work?
- The seller platform of ReGlobe helps user to calculate the current worth of their gadgets through a screening of objective questions.
- It then quotes certain price for sale for the customer to agree upon.
- After which ReGlobe arranges for a pick-up of the device and pays the money via cash or bank transfer.
- It then wipes off all the data from the device making it undergo certain security checks.
- The devices which are bought are refurbished and sold in the second hand market through a dealer network and their own online store.
Mandeep Manocha, co founder, ReGlobe, said, “We’ve built an ecosystem where the seller really doesn’t have any pain points. We help with the price discovery, get a buyback price and ensure the device is sold within 24 hours.
ReGlobe plans to utilize the funds to build on its technology platform, increase its partners and outreach to a number of cities in the country. Presently the startup has its presence across 15 cities in India.
Nakul Kumar, co founder, ReGlobe, said, “The target is to be in the top 30 cities over the next six months and position the company as the pricing benchmark for consumer electronics products.”
The startup has presently partnered with more than 100 buyers and sellers of second-hand consumer electronic products, along with retail chains like that of Croma and Reliance Retail. ReGlobe had also partnered with the online marketplace, Snapdeal to sell used gadgets on the platform.
ReGlobe competes with refurbished goods retailer Reverse Logistics Corp, which owns and operates portal GreenDust.com. Greendust had raised $40 Mn funding from Vertex Venture and Lightbox and is in talks to raise over $100 Mn. Another online recommerce company, Overcart had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from K. Ganesh. Besides, the horizontal online and mobile classifieds ventures Quikr.com and Naspers-backed OLX.com are also in close competition with the startup .
Indian startups have been mesmerizing the investment firms with their idea of growing the business and capturing the potential markets. As reported the early-stage investors so far have breached $1 Bn (INR 6,334 Cr) this year in its first quarter. Out of which payments and consumer web sectors share a greater pie with mobile, ecommerce and SaaS companies being on the second seat.
Prior to this the investment firm, Bessemer Venture Partners, has invested in around 24 companies in India including BigBasket, Livspace, TaxiForSure, Snapdeal, Remedinet Technologies and Hungama Digital. It had also raised its IX global fund with a corpus of $1.6 Bn recently.
Akash Goel, VP, Bessemer Venture Partners said, “The founders have crafted a superb business model that makes it a seamless experience for consumers. The market opportunity is at least a couple of billion dollars. This is a very capital efficient and scalable model.”
Whereas, Blume Ventures, has invested in startups like Verayu, Greytip, SnapLion, SocialBlood and GiftCards India amongst others.