Sources: DealShare, an Indian social commerce startup initially focused on WhatsApp, raises $100M Series D led by Tiger Global, after its $21M Series C in Dec. — Tiger Global has invested in DealShare, a startup in India that has built an e-commerce platform for middle- and lower-income groups.
DealShare, an Indian social commerce website, is in talks with Tiger Global about a $100 million investment
In a move that comes just three months after the Indian company concluded its previous $21 million Series C financing round, Tiger Global is in talks to invest in DealShare, a startup in India that has developed an e-commerce platform targeted towards middle- and lower-income consumers based in the subcontinent.
According to two people familiar with the deal, the New York-based company is planning to lead a $100 million Series D round of funding for DealShare, a three-year-old social commerce startup. An additional person said that the investment round has not yet closed, and the size of the total investment – including some debt financing – could grow in the near future. In response to an email sent by a reporter on Sunday, Tiger Global declined to comment, and a founder of the Indian startup did not return a call.
It was reported Monday evening by the Indian news outlet Entrackr that DealShare was in the process of raising $70 million to $100 million from investors.
The journey of DealShare began when Walmart acquired Flipkart, a startup whose founder and chief executive Vineet Rao told a virtual conference late last year that the startup had started the day Walmart acquired Flipkart. In an interview with The Hindu, Rao noted that even though Amazon and Flipkart had been able to create their own markets for themselves in urban Indian cities, much of the country still remained underserved. According to him, there was a chance for someone to jump in and make a difference.
Initially, the startup was a WhatsApp-based e-commerce platform that offered hundreds of products to consumers as part of its e-commerce platform. There was a noticeable pattern in consumer spending in no time at all, Rao said, and it did not take long for it to become apparent. There seems to be a trend where people are only interested in purchasing items that are being sold at a discounted price, according to Rao.
DealShare’s core offering has evolved to include this idea, which has become a part of its core offering over time. By offering consumers discounts and cashbacks, it encourages them to share deals on products with their friends by incentivizing them to share deals on products with their friends. Now that the startup has launched its own app and website, it is operating in over two dozen cities across India and has launched its own app and website.
In Rao’s opinion, consumers want to buy products that are relevant to their lives, and they want to buy them at a price that gives them the maximum value for their money. The focus of the store was on local products rather than national brands. According to him, even today, 80% to 90% of the items we sell are made locally,” he said.
The current market share of Amazon and Flipkart in the Indian retail market is less than 3%, which leaves a lot of room for the growth of new models. There are a number of bets that are being made in India in terms of social commerce. In addition to this, another bet that is gaining traction in the country is the digitization of the neighborhood stores in the country, without a lot of the social aspect – that are spread throughout the country in tens of thousands of cities, towns and villages.
Tiger Global is reportedly planning to close more than two dozen deals in India by the end of the year, according to a report published by TechCrunch on Monday. Last week, Tiger Global, which closed a $6.7 billion fund recently, led a series of investments in social network ShareChat, business messaging platform Gupshup, and investment app Groww, and also participated in the funding round of fintech app CRED, which helped all of these startups become unicorns.
Last week, Meesho, the market leader in social commerce in India, also achieved unicorn status after SoftBank led a $300 million round in the Indian company, valuing it at $2.1 billion.
Among the investors of DealShare are WestBridge Capital, Falcon Edge Capital’s Alpha Wave, Z3Partners, and the Omidyar Network.