[Funding alert] CityMall raises $3M seed investment led by Elevation Capital

Social commerce platform Citymall has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Elevation Capital (previously SAIF Partners). Waterbridge ventures, Arun Tadanki’s private syndicate on LetsVenture, also participated in this round.

The funding will be used to build a network of community leaders and also expand CityMall's supply chain in Tier III and IV cities. The team is also looking to expand its core team.

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Angad Kikla, Co-founder, CityMall, said in a press statement shared by the company:

"With this funding, we are looking to deepen supply chains in Tier II, III, and IV cities and introduce new categories such as fresh, grocery, and FMCG. We are also confident of expanding our network further in Tier III, III, and IV cities in states such as Haryana.”

He added in the press statement that the next 300 million Internet users, living in smaller cities, towns, and villages have a fundamentally different behaviour than the first 100 million users. The team added that these consumers native to social platforms like WhatsApp and prefer buying from someone they trust.

For that reason, community led ecommerce is unique as it solves two distinct problems – one creating a layer of trusted community leaders and secondly, disrupting two most significant cost elements of any ecommerce business – customer acquisition and logistics

Akarsh Shrivastava, Vice President, Elevation Capital, said in the press statement, “We believe ecommerce platforms to serve these users will need to look and operate differently. CityMall’s unique community leader led business model positions it uniquely to solve this problem for grocery and daily needs. Coupled with Angad and Naisheel’s deep understanding of the space and the consumer segment, Citymall is best positioned to capture this massive market. Excited to be a part of this journey.”

Akarsh believes India’s ecommerce penetration is still lower as compared to other economies like the US and China, a major reason for this is limited headway existing platforms have been able to make beyond urban and Tier I towns. The new generation of 200-300 million Internet users come from beyond these towns.

In the past six months, CityMall has achieved a staggering 12x growth in revenue and has established presence in smaller towns and cities of Rewari, Dharuhera, Pataudi, Sonipat, Bahadurgarh to name a few.

Naisheel Verdhan, Co-founder, CityMall, said:

“Our vision is to build a decentralised ecommerce ecosystem for the next 200-300 million Internet users. We enable micro-entrepreneurs to run virtual digital stores by bringing ecommerce technology and cutting edge customer analytics on their smartphones. Apart from being vernacular, our app gamifies the journey of community leaders to help them grow their business on CityMall while offering a super-simple and convenient experience for end consumers.”