[Funding alert] CityMall raises $11M in Series A round led by Accel Partners

Social ecommerce and online grocery platform startup CityMall, which focuses on Tier-II cities and other lower tiered locations, has raised $11 million in a Series A round led by Accel Partners.

Existing investors Elevation Capital and WaterBridge Venturesparticipated in the funding round.

CityMall plans to use the funding to strengthen its supply chain, logistics network, and expand its footprint to 20 new cities in Tier-II, III, and IV markets.

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Founded in 2019 by Angad Kikla and Naisheel Verdhan, CityMall aims to have over two lakh customers and the same number of community leaders by 2022.

“The accelerated pace of our growth in the past 10 months is a testimony of our ability to create a sustainable and effective model to address the challenges faced by traditional ecommerce models in Tier-II, III, and IV markets of India,” said Angad.

CityMall positions itself as a community commerce platform designed for the next 400 small cities, towns, and villages, with a focus on everyday-use categories such as grocery, FMCG, fresh, as well as particular home and kitchen-related products.

The startup said that since its seed round led by Elevation Capital in June 2020, it has achieved 25 times growth in revenues. During this period, CityMall also established its presence in several small towns and cities such as Rewari, Dharuhera, Pataudi, Sonipat, Bahadurgarh, Jhajjar, Rohtak, and Panipat.

Explaining why Accel Partners invested in the startup, Vice President Pratik Agarwal said: “CityMall's genius lies in their business model that not only serves the consumers, but also has favourable economics that will ensure enduring wide-scale impact.”

Elevation Capital Vice President Akarsh Shrivastava said: “Tier-II+ grocery is a very large opportunity, which has remained untapped because of unique challenges that traditional ecommerce models have struggled to address. CityMall’s community group buying model has allowed it to bridge this gap and offer a high trust and super convenient purchase experience (while being price competitive)."