'Fynd' Out About Google's Second Investment In India Curious about how this startup manage to convince Google to invest in it? Fynd out!
By Nidhi Singh
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Getting your startup funded is the most essential element of growth without a doubt. From angel investors to venture capitalists, there are a range of funding options for founders today. And, if you get backed by a reliable investor then Voila!
Recently, Mumbai-based omnichannel platform Fynd raised Series C funding led by global giant investor Google. The round also saw participation from Kae Capital, IIFL, Singularity Ventures, GrowX, Tracxn Labs, Venture Catalyst, Patni family office and Hong Kong-based Axis Capital among other angel investors in the round.
Founded by Farooq Adam, Harsh Shah, and Sreeraman MG, Fynd is a unique fashion e-commerce platform that attempts to bring the latest in-store fashion on a digital platform.
The O2O (Online-to-Offline Commerce) company directly sources products across various categories including clothing, footwear, jewellery and accessories from the most prominent brands in the country.
Revolutionize Online & Offline Shopping Experiences:
In an exclusive conversation with Entrepreneur India, Fynd's Co-founder Harsh Shah said, "Our vision is to revolutionize the online and offline shopping experience across all channels and customer touch-points. We expect that the capital raised will help us further bolster our growth trajectory."
Shah stated that Fynd is growing steadily and has managed to seal some exciting partnerships in the past few months.
Initially incepted as Shopsense Retail Technology Pvt. Ltd., in 2012, the company pivoted to Fynd in November 2015 and is currently based out of Mumbai.
How Fynd Got Google's Investment?
This is Google's second investment in India after leading a $12-million funding in Bengaluru-based hyperlocal startup Dunzo in December 2017. Curious about how did the startup manage to convince Google to make its second direct investment in India? Shah spilled the beans on what helped the company win over investors.
Shah believes when one has a strong business proposition, rest everything falls into place automatically.
"We had got a good business proposition and benefit to our target audience and hence were able to convince Google to be a part of our journey," said Shah.
The startup had earlier raised a round in April 2017 led by IIFL with participation from New York-based FJ Labs and Silicon Valley-based Rocketship among other participating existing investors.
Going Big On Offline Expansion:
Fynd intends to utilize the funds received to focus on offline expansion. The company is in a leadership position in terms of getting offline inventory with more than 8500 stores. It is working on enhancing this reach further claims Shah.
"Over the past years, we have established a base in the market and have fine-tuned our business model and market proposition. Now that it has been validated by all major retail giants including Reliance Brands and tech giants including Google, it is time for us to level up the game and increase our offline expansion," shared Shah.
He revealed that the company is has more solutions to be added to the bucket of the store owners to derive additional sales for their stores. "All this will be topped up by boosting up our customer out-reach program as well," he added.
