Shop101 raises $11 M in Series B from Kalaari Capital, Unilever Ventures

The fresh funding, that comes less than five months after Shop 101 raised $5 million in Series A, will be used to enhance the technology platform and scale the supplier network.  

Mumbai-based social ecommerce platform, Shop 101 has secured $11 million (80 crore) in Series B funding round led by Kalaari Capital and Unilever Ventures, the company confirmed on Thursday.

The latest round also saw participation from existing investors including Stellaris Venture Partners, Vy Capital and Ramakant Sharma, co-founder of Livspace.

With the freshly raised funding, Shop 101, co-founded in 2015 by IIT graduates Abhinav Jain and Aditya Gupta, will be looking to enhance its technology platform, strengthen its core leadership and product team, and scale the supplier network. Incidentally, the latest funding boost for the leading social ecommerce startup comes less than five months after Shop 101 raised $5M in Series A led by investors Stellaris Venture Partners and Vy Capital.

“Our vision at Shop101 is to democratise commerce by empowering existing entrepreneurs as well as those who want to start a business. We help an entrepreneur right from setting up a new business to scaling it pan-India with technology and marketing solutions,” said Abhinav Jain, Co-founder and CEO of Shop101.

He added that smaller towns and cities have been boosting their sales, with more than 70 percent of the share coming in from these places.

“We have grown over 50 percent month-on-month over last year and empowered entrepreneurs across the country with reliable and scalable technology, extensive range of products on supply platform, pan-India logistics and payment solutions.” Abhinav said.

By providing an advanced technology platform, Shop 101 allows its wide user-base – such as established merchants and budding entrepreneurs including housewives, college students and young graduates – to build a business with zero investment by selling online and across WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and other social channels.

Speaking about the latest investment, Vani Kola, Managing Director of Kalaari Capital said, “We are impressed with the Shop101 team as they have built an innovative product that has enabled them to scale both supply and demand significantly in a short period of time. We are excited to partner with them to enable benefits of online commerce to micro-entrepreneurs and consumers alike.”

With social commerce growing rapidly, Shop 101 seems to be further tapping on the opportunities by combining their understanding of customer needs the with trust derived from personal relationships.

"The Social Selling platform is tapping the large Indian ecommerce market potential beyond Metro cities. We believe Shop101 is well placed to grow this market," added Pawan Chaturvedi, Investment Director of Unilever Ventures.