Social commerce startup DealShare said it has raised $165 million at a valuation of $1.6 billion, giving it the unicorn tag, as the funding spree continues, even as listed technology stocks got hammered in the last couple of weeks.
DealShare, founded in September 2018 by Vineet Rao, Sourjyendu Medda, Sankar Bora, and Rajat Shikhar, is focused on bringing an online shopping experience to first-time internet users in India’s hinterlands.
This was the first close of the 3-year old’s startup’s Series E fundraise. Apart from existing investors such as Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global, new investors such as Dragoneer Investments Group, Kora Capital, and Unilever Ventures participated in the round. In its last round of funding six months ago, DealShare was valued at $455 million, quadrupling its valuation in less than a year.
Post the funding, Tiger Global owns 11.71% stake in the company, while Alpha Wave Ventures owns close to 2%.
DealShare Chief Business Officer and founder Medda said that the company will expand its presence to over 200 cities across 20 states this year, and is targeting to increase its annual revenue run rate to $3 billion while becoming operationally profitable.
The company’s annual revenue run rate is currently above $600 million. Medda also said that DealShare is aiming to add about 5 crore new consumers in the next 12 months.
“Our mission is to increase affordability and accessibility of high-quality products at low prices for mass consumers. We have created a unique network of more than 1,000 small and medium manufacturers in the grocery and essential space which allow us to enable our mission. Majority of our consumers are first to e-commerce because of us. Not only are we spearheading e-commerce adoption in the country but we are also doing that with ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ as the key focus,” he said.
The company said it expects to hit $1 billion in revenues in the near term and will use the money raised to invest in technology and data science, as well as building out its logistics. It is also planning to offline, with a store franchise network.
Source: The Economic Times, Money Control, Business Today
