BENGALURU: Social commerce company DealShare is in advanced talks to raise funds, and with the fresh round of funding, the company will join the elite unicorn club. In July 2021, DealShare raised USD 144 million funding, and it was valued at USD 455 million.
Till now, the company has raised a total of USD 183 million. The platform is funded by Tiger Global, WestBridge Capital and Alpha Wave Incubation, DST Global, Matrix Partners India, Z3Partners, and Alteria Capital.
In an interaction with The New Indian Express, Sourjyendu Medda, Founder, Chief Business Officer, and Chief Financial Officer, DealShare, said, "We are at the closing stages of fundraising."
DealShare, which offers grocery and home essential products with low prices and with vernacular browsing, aims to grow 10x this year. It clocked about USD 700 million gross-revenue run rate in 2021. Having presence in 10 states and over 100 cities, it is targeting to expand to 20 states and 300 cities and towns.
E-commerce businesses, especially grocery platforms, have benefited immensely because of the pandemic. "When we started in 2018, e-commerce penetration in grocery was very less and now it is close to 1% and growing at a very fast pace," Medda said.
WATCH |
There are many social commerce platforms in India such as Meesho and CityMall and models like 'Reseller' and 'Community buying' are seeing traction in India. From two lakh sq. feet in December 2020, DealShare's warehousing space has reached over 20 lakh sq feet at present with a network of over 80 warehouses. It serves over 3 lakh orders a day across 1000 pin codes.
Accenture's new study says the USD 492 billion global social commerce industry is expected to grow three times as fast as traditional e-commerce to USD 1.2 trillion by 2025. And growth will be driven by Gen Z and millennial social media users. Also, another report points out that India will have 228 million social commerce consumers by 2022.
Medda said, "Social commerce has not been understood very well in India. But if you look worldwide, especially in China and Western countries, the social commerce model is the growth engine of e-commerce today. In India too, it is the growth engine and this model works well when there is a mass population with low per capita income."
Eyes expansion in 20 states and 300 cities
DealShare clocked about $700 million gross-revenue run rate in 2021.Having presence in 10 states and over 100 cities, it is targeting to expand to 20 states and 300 cities and towns