Mobile technology platform for neighbourhood retailers LazyLad secures $500K funding from global angels
Mobile focused platform for neighbourhood retailers LazyLad has raised $500K from a consortium of angels, including Japan-based Kiyohiro Sugashita, Jai Choi (Silicon Valley-based VC) and Hirokazu. The Gurgaon-based company had earlier secured $100K from GHV accelerator in early May this year.
The brainchild of Saurabh Singla, Paresh Goel, and Ajay Sethi -- LazyLad was the first startup to be accelerated at GHV accelerator programme. The startup will use funds towards accelerating expansion plans in major cities of India and launching operations in Indonesia, Singapore, and other developing Asian countries.
While LazyLad enables merchants with a mobile platform to facilitate neighbourhood commerce, it also has consumer-facing Android and iOS apps for consumers.
Speaking about getting early traction and funding, Saurabh said,
It's the nature of the model that has given us the boost. A week after getting selected in GHV, we got selected in NASSCOM 10000 Startups, and eventually got selected for Innotrek 2015 (which was held in Silicon Valley, USA). This provided us great exposure of what is happening in the Silicon Valley and how that can be helpful in building a Unicorn product company in India.
iSpirit’s Founder and ex-CEO Yahoo R&D India Sharad Sharma, and Vikram Upadhyay, Chief Evangelist and Mentor at GHV, have been mentoring the company for the last two months. LazyLad claims to have grown 10X in the last two months and currently has subscriber base of 8K Android users and 200 registered retailers. At present, the platform claims to process 1,200 orders a day.
According to Vikram Upadhyaya,
Accelerating LazyLad to the Pre-Series A round in just 60 days was fast & furious at GHV Accelerator. They have grown beyond 10x what GHV strives for all the portfolios.
The company claims to have 36K orders a month from selective sectors of Gurgaon and Chandigarh. Though, the number appears mind-boggling to us for a barely 80 day-old company but Saurabh emphasized that their strategies (not disclosed) are "the secret sauce" for such a hockey-stick growth curve.
YourStory's take
Unlike Grofers and Peppertap, LazyLad charges a flat commission (irrespective of transaction size) of two to three rupees. The company broadly competes with Grofers, Peppertap, besides Aaaramshop and PayMango.
Enabling neighbourhood retailer with mobile or technology platform is a big opportunity in India. According to some industry estimate, the current market opportunity of this space is about $16 billion, which is bigger than e-commerce.
And, it’s expected to grow to $80 billion by 2020. In future as more startups jump onto the mobile internet bandwagon, this will scale up very fast. Growth and numbers claim by LazyLad is stellar but mind boggling too. Besides delivery, mobile technology enablement to neighbourhood merchants is a massive opportunity.
