Reliance acquires SaaS platform for SMEs NowFloats Technologies
The fresh investment will enable Nowfloats' digital and new commerce initiatives. On achieving milestones, Reliance will be further pumping in an investment of up to Rs 75 crore, by December 2020.
Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, announced on Thursday, that it has acquired SaaS platform NowFloats Technologies. Reliance acquired equity shares of NowFloats for a cash consideration of Rs 141 crore (approx).
According to a statement issued by the company, the investment represents 85 percent holding in the equity share capital of Nowfloats.
The fresh investment will enable Nowfloats' digital and new commerce initiatives. On achieving milestones that are discussed internally, Reliance will be further pumping in an investment of up to Rs 75 crore, by December 2020.
Hyderabad-based NowFloats was founded in May 2012 by Neeraj Sabhrawal, Nitin Jain, Ronak Kumar Samantray, and Jasminder Gulati.
The SaaS company enables small and medium businesses (SMEs) to scale their online presence with their main product, Boost. The solutions including boosting the business website, website management application, and enabling automatic search engine optimisation (SEO) of the website.
The startup also helps SMBs to set up a business website within minutes, along with auto-SEO, responsive design, product catalogue, and payment gateway. It also sync the SMBs’ social media channels for better reach.
It is an early-stage company with turnover of Rs 32.56 crore, Rs 18.73 crore and Rs 10.38 crore, in FY 2019, FY 2018 and FY 2017, respectively.
According to the NowFloats website, it has brought over 130,000 merchants online and their websites account for five percent of all traffic generated by Indian SMBs.
NowFloats was one of the four startups that graduated from the Alibaba eFounders Fellowship Programme.
Earlier in March, NowFloats Technologies raised an additional funding of $3.6 million from existing investors including Iron Pillar, IIFL, and Omidyar Network, as well as a new Malaysian investor, consulting firm Wenlyn Global Group. So far, NowFloats has raised $17.4 million in funding, across seven rounds. It is also backed by Blume Ventures and BlackSoil.
