Amazon acquires social ecommerce platform GlowRoad
According to the ecommerce giant, "This is a step further in Amazon’s commitment to digitize 10 million local Indian businesses by 2025."
Jeff Bezos founded ecommerce giant has acquired social commerce startup .
An Amazon spokesperson said, "This acquisition will complement GlowRoad’s already loved service with Amazon’s technology, infrastructure, and digital payments capabilities, bringing more efficiency and cost-saving for everyone. This is a step further in Amazon’s commitment to digitise 10 million local Indian businesses by 2025."
While the news of the acquisition was confirmed, the company did not divulge details of the terms of the deal. However, several media houses reported that it is an all-cash deal that has paved the way for the exit of its investors.
"This acquisition will complement GlowRoad’s already loved service with Amazon’s technology, infrastructure, and digital payments capabilities, bringing more efficiency and cost-saving for everyone," the statement read.
The GlowRoad Team
The social commerce platform was started in 2017 by Dr Sonal Verma, Kunal Sinha, Shekhar Sahu, Nitesh Pant, and Nilesh Padariya. The aim was to create a sustainable digital platform for individuals, especially women, to earn from home with zero investment, the co-founders told YourStory in an earlier interview. GlowRoad is backed by top venture capitalists in the ecosystem including the likes of Accel, CDH, Vertex, and Korea Investment Partners.
The startup is said to have raised $32 million so far.
Additionally, in five years, its presence has grown to more than 2,000 cities with more than six million sellers on its platform. India houses and , among others, which are competing with GlowRoad in the same segment.
The ecommerce giant's thrust on the small and medium enterprises sector has been quite notable for the last few years. Amazon India had previously shared in a blog post that it has digitally transformed 2.5 million MSMEs, enabled exports worth $3 billion, and created one million jobs since its advent in the country in 2013.
In 2020, it had also announced plans to invest $1 billion to digitally enable MSMEs including manufacturers, resellers, local offline shops, and brands. The larger goal of the company is to digitise about 10 million Indian MSMEs with this investment and hit a target of $10 billion in cumulative exports by 2025.
Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta