ShopClues raises third round of funding; Nexus Venture Partners and Helion invest
ShopClues.com
India’s first and largest managed marketplace has successfully completed its third round of funding. In a tough market, the company raised close to $10 million (Rs. 54 crores) from Helion Venture Partners and Nexus Venture Partners. Nexus Venture Partners had previously led the Series A investment in the company in Feb 2012. With this round, ShopClues.com has raised over $15 million in capital so far. Anup Gupta from Nexus Venture Partners had joined the board last year which has now been expanded with Sanjeev Aggarwal from Helion.
ShopClues has a line-up of world-class investors. Series B investors include top VC firms Helion and Nexus and also a leading Japanese Internet company. In Feb 2012, the company had raised Series A from Nexus and founder of one of the largest marketplaces in the world. Prior to Series A, ShopClues had raised a round (in Aug. 2011) from marquee angels including and early employees of companies like Google, Netscape and many serial entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.
The gross revenue transacted on the platform is up nearly 110 times from February 2012 to February 2013. ShopClues had started in Nov 2011 and is perhaps the fastest growing E-Commerce platform company in India.ShopClues.com took India by surprise by coming up with a totally unique approach to E-Commerce and launched India’s first managed marketplace. The model turned out to be highly disruptive making ShopClues is among the fastest growing E-Commerce destinations in India. ShopClues is empowering thousand of merchants across India to sell online using ShopClues as a platform. ShopClues has one of the largest catalog of products and brands in India with very low prices.
“Even as online retail comes of age in India with over 10 million users, there are several small and medium businesses in the country that struggle to garner a toe-hold in this growing marketplace. This is exactly what ShopClues.com wants to address. At least a third of the 30 million SMBs will benefit from the visibility and marketplace that we offer, albeit at lower transactional costs than doing it alone, all by themselves”, says Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of ShopClues.com
“We believe that the time is ripe for smaller business to jump onto the online retail bandwagon, given the deep entrenchment of online shopping among Indian consumers. In fact, smaller business may lose their share of the marketplace if they do not have an online strategy in place. This is why ShopClues.com is relevant, and the platform has already proved invaluable to numerous merchants. On the consumer front, ShopClues.com offers a great comparison engine, a vital shopping tool. Moreover, the growth that we’ve seen in this company is proof of its leadership and vision”, says Sanjeev Aggarwal, Senior Managing Director, Helion Advisors.
“We have been very impressed with ShopClues.com’s differentiated approach to E-Commerce that is highly scalable and capital efficient. Sandeep Aggarwal and the team at ShopClues have single minded focus on execution and are solving fundamental issues for E-Commerce by bringing India centric innovations based on their global learning” said Anup Gupta, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners.
About ShopClues
Founded in July 2011 in Silicon Valley, ShopClues.com is India’s first and the largest fully managed marketplace that connects buyers and sellers online and offers a trusted and safe online shopping experience. More than 5 million people visit ShopClues.com every month and ShopClues has served nearly 9,000 cities, towns and villages in India. ShopClues.com offers nearly 750k SKUs, over 2,000 global & domestic brands, and thousands of online stores from brands or retailer across 540+ categories. ShopClues is funded by leading institutional investors and has 225+ employees in India, based out of Gurgaon, New Delhi, Mumbai, and Vadodara.
About Nexus Venture Partners
Nexus Venture Partners (www.nexusvp.com) is India’s leading venture capital fund, with offices in India and Silicon Valley. Nexus team consists of entrepreneurs who have founded and scaled large global companies. The team has invested in a variety of companies leading to numerous successful public offerings and M&A transactions. It has over $600mn under management with an active portfolio of over 45 companies across technology, Internet, media, consumer, and business services sectors. The Nexus team plays an active role in helping entrepreneurs and management teams build market leading businesses.
About Helion
Helion is a multi-stage, India-focused venture fund with over $600 million under management. The fund invests in businesses that are technology-powered or catering to the Indian consumer services space. Helion’s focus sectors of investment include consumer internet, mobile, technology products, outsourcing, Healthcare, education, retail services and financial services. The fund's investors are well-respected global institutions including top tier university endowment funds, sovereign funds, foundations, pension funds, family offices and Fund of funds. The fund and its portfolio companies are advised by an experienced and industry renowned team of professionals based in India and includes Sanjeev Aggarwal, Ashish Gupta,Kanwaljit Singh, Rahul Chandra and R Natarajan. For more information visit www.helionvc.com
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