Social Commerce Startup DealShare Raises $21 Mn To Enter 100 Cities

Jaipur-based social commerce startup DealShare has raised $21 Mn in Series C funding round led by WestBridge Capital. Alpha Wave Incubation, Matrix Partners India and Omidyar Network India also participated in this round, along with independent investors.

DealShare will use this funding to expand its local sourcing network, strengthen its technology platform across business verticals and expand into new geographies. Beyond this, the company will also use this funding to penetrate deeper into current markets.

CEO Vineet Rao explained that DealShare plans to use the funds to strengthen its technology platform and talent pool, while promoting its “Made-for-India” solution.

“With this round of investment, we will augment our brand presence across existing and new markets. Over the next one year, we are targeting to increase our footprint to 100 cities and towns across five states. Along with this, we will increase our customer base to one crore. This investment will take us to an annual GMV of INR 2,500 Cr”, added Sourjyendu Medda, founder and chief business officer at DealShare.

DealShare was founded by Rao, Sourjyendu Medda, Sankar Bora, Rishav Dev and Rajat Shikhar in September 2018. The Jaipur-headquartered startup sells grocery and household essential products through social media and messenger platforms like WhatsApp.

Dealshare serves about 25K orders a day and has partnered with 1000 brands. It plans to add an additional 5000 brands and expands its presence from 25 Cities to 100 cities in 2021.

The company claims to be clocking a gross revenue of $45 Mn with about $7 Mn of capital invested. The company had last raised $8 Mn in its Series A round led by Matrix Partners India and Falcon Edge Capital back in October 2019. The round also saw participation from partners of DST Global, and Omidyar Network India.

Social commerce focuses solely on middle-income and lower-income segments from non-metropolitan cities in India to sell non-branded apparel, groceries and local handicrafts.

The social part of these platforms comes from the fact that users can get better deals or earn money by rounding up their friends and family to make purchases through them.

Meesho, CityMall, and BulBul are among the few social ecommerce platforms in India. CityMall recently raised $3 Mn in a seed funding round led by Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF Partners), with participation from Waterbridge Ventures, Arun Tadanki’s private syndicate on LetsVenture.