[Funding alert] Social commerce platform OneCode raises seed round led by WaterBridge Ventures

OneCode, a platform focussed on building India’s largest digital distribution network, on Monday announced it has raised seed funding led by WaterBridge Ventures. 

The round also saw participation from a host of angel investors such as Miten Sampat, Aakrit Vaish (founder at Haptik), Rocky and Siddharth Mohan (Old Monk and Gourmet Passport), Apaksh Gupta (founder at One Impression), Venus Dhuria (founder at Appyhigh), Khalid Qazi, and Harshita Singh. 

The Gurugram-based startup had earlier raised an angel round from Dineout founders (Ankit Mehrotra, Sahil Jain, Nikhil Bakshi, and Vivek Kapoor).

“Accessing those segments of the market which have remained inaccessible through the existing digital channels is crucial for brands in general and D2C brands in particular. OneCode is laying down a network of sellers at ground zero, which will take the brands directly to the doorstep of customers who have never transacted digitally,” said Ashish Jain, Partner, WaterBridge Ventures.   

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Founded by Manish Shara and Yash Desai, OneCode connects new-age digital first brands with "relevant" sellers (aka OneCoders) to sell their products and services to trust deficit and less tech savvy users by building trust through assisted sales and support. The startup acts as a bridge between brands and the end consumers who need physical touch points, in-person interactions, training, push and motivation before buying a product/service.

The platform currently has a network of close to 200,000 sellers, and is clocking close to $500,000 in GMV (ARR) doing 100,000 transactions and growing 200 percent month-on-month. Their brand partners include established names such as Pharmeasy, 1MG, Dr Vaidyas, Kaya youth, and The Man Company among others. 

Backed by strong performance, the startup said it is in active discussions to on-board several brands across health, apparel, and grooming categories. The infusion of capital will be used to invest deeper in tech and team expansion, as well as to widen the customer base.

“Because of COVID, retail stores are going through a massive churn, and this would mean that new online experiences will emerge where brands will try other modes of selling such as 1-1 assisted sales, replicating the offline buying experience for customers. Platforms like ours will appeal to such brands and customers who need an interaction, a human touch point before buying any product/service and would prefer to stay at home,” added Manish Shara, Co-founder, Onecode.