[Funding alert] SaaS startup Karnival raises $250K from We Founder Circle

Startup investment platform We Founder Circle (WFC) has invested in Karnival, a Bengaluru-based SaaS customer engagement platform for retailers and brands to create personalised post-purchase customer journeys using smart receipts technology.

The seed round worth $250,000 witnessed participation from marquee investors including Krishna Kumar - Founder, Simplilearn, Dravya Dholakia - Dholakia Ventures, Shashwat Kumar - Khetal Advisors Singapore, and corporate leaders such as Abhay Tandon, Dinesh Agrawal, Avnish Sabharwal, Abhishek Kishore Gupta and Suman Das.

“There is always a need for constant innovation. Karnival is playing the same role in the retail sector. The Indian retail industry is worth more than $1 trillion now, and we are trying to leap into a sector that big. The objective is to move from paper-based receipts to smart digital receipts to create an ecosystem keeping customer experience unique,” said Siddharth Mishra, Founder and CEO, Karnival.

“In a very short period, we have already associated with leading retailers and brands, revolutionising their procedures. We aim at associating with over 500 brands by 2021 FY end,” Siddharth added.

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Karnival had previously raised $35,000 in the pre-Seed round in 2020 from Sanjay Mehta backed 100X.VC.

Smart Receipt is a proprietary technology of Karnival which enables post-purchase customer engagements by enabling various interactive features like NPS, offers, re-targeting and marketing effectiveness. Invaluable customer profile data is collected following various guidelines like GDPR to interact to create experiences that are engaging for enhancing customer loyalty.

Founded in 2019, Karnival’s platform is implemented with over 50 marquee retailers and brands including Aditya Birla Retail Limited, Titan Company Limited, Lulu Group UAE, Spar Hypermarket, Fabindia, and Pantaloons. It is already deployed at 5000+ stores and is generating 4.5 million receipts a month and facilitating more than $100 million worth of transactions.

Neeraj Tyagi, Co-founder and CEO, We Founder Circle, added, “Post pandemic, not only have people become more digitally equipped, but also businesses. As businesses are looking for solutions to expand, operate, manage and serve remotely, SaaS and cloud-based solutions will play a big role. Also, for this particular sector, we in India are blessed with both quality talent and economic viability. This together widens the scope for Indian startups like Karnival who are offering global solutions, to make an impact both in India and globally.”