Bengaluru-based social commerce platform GlowRoad has raised ₹70 crores ($10 million) in Series B funding from China-based CDH Investments. Existing investor Accel Partners also participated in the funding round. The startup plans to use the freshly raised capital to strengthen its supply chain and boost its business growth.
Founded by Kunal Sinha, Nilesh Padariya, Nitesh Pant, Shekhar Sahu and Sonal Verma in 2017, the startup was earlier known as LocalQueen but was later acquired by Sonal Verma who renamed the company as GlowRoad. The platform enables trading for suppliers and sellers by opening stores and enabling logistics.
The startup has partnered with logistics companies like Ecom Express, EKart, Delhivery and XpressBees to enable smooth deliveries from suppliers to customers. As per current metrics, more than 2,00,000 sellers are associated with GlowRoad across 1,000 cities in India. The startup lists over 1,00,000 products.
Earlier in 2017, GlowRoad raised ₹14 crores ($2 million) in series A round from Accel Partners. Chinese investors are eyeing Indian social commerce segment for quite some time. Shunwei Capital invested ₹350 crores ($50 million) in a social commerce platform Meesho.
More than 50 per cent of the sellers on the platform are housewives. Platforms like this provide people living in tier-III and tier-IV cities to generate a side income by working from home. According to a report by Zinnov, India’s e-commerce market will touch the ₹15,40,000 crores ($220 billion) by 2025.
