Citymall Raises $75 Million in Series C Led by Norwest Venture Partners The fresh funds will be used to strengthen the startup's leadership and engineering teams
By S Shanthi
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Social commerce platform, Citymall, has announced a $75 million in Series C funding led by Norwest Venture Partners. General Catalyst, Citius, Jungle Ventures, Arena Ventures, Elevation, Accel and Waterbridge also participated in the round.
This is the startup's third fundraise in the last 18 months, bringing the total capital raised to $110 million.
Founded in 2019, by serial entrepreneurs Angad Kikla and Naisheel Verdhan, Citymall targets the 500 million new-to-Internet users in Tier II and Tier III towns. Through its network of community leaders who serve as both marketing partners and logistics partners for the company, Citymall aims to provide access to online commerce to these ecommerce-dark towns. Community Leaders work on a commission based model where they use their social network to invite friends and family members to form a shopping team to qualify for discounts, assist them to make purchases across a variety of categories including grocery, FMCG and fashion, and also manage the last-mile delivery of orders.
The model has seen tremendous growth over the last 18 months, growing over 30 per cent month on month, while creating entrepreneurship opportunities for over 30,000 community leaders across 25 towns and cities, the company said in a statement, adding that 80 per cent of Citymall's users have never transacted on any e-commerce platform before. "On an average 10 consumers place an order with a Community Leader, and that number is growing," it said.
Commenting on the fundraise, Angad Kikla, co-founder of Citymall said "Purchasing habits in small towns of India involve heavy offline assistance and social proof. Ticket sizes of these purchases are also 1/3rd of what we have in metro cities. Citymall's Community Leaders not only assist 1st-time e-commerce users in their purchases but also act as demand aggregation points thereby making an extremely efficient supply chain that can support low ticket sizes. With more than 30K community leaders on the platform, we have seen tremendous growth and best-in-class unit economics in the last 12-15 months. We have a stellar leadership team and some of the biggest global investors backing us, and with the latest fundraise we're well-positioned to further our lead as the leaders of community commerce in India".
"We have been impressed by the strong product-market fit and hypergrowth that Citymall has demonstrated over the last few months. Citymall is a pioneer in the Community Group Buying (CGB) model in India and has been able to serve lower value orders through a network of Community Leaders (CLs) solving for efficient customer acquisition and lower supply chain costs. We are excited to partner with Angad, Naisheel and the entire Citymall team as they create an online supermart for the next 200 million customers from Tier 2 to Tier 5 towns, closely aligning with the government's development goals of increasing online penetration in Tier 2 towns and beyond," added Niren Shah, MD and head of India, Norwest Venture Partners.
The fresh funds will be used to strengthen the startup's leadership and engineering teams, introduce new categories on its platform, expand its existing supply chain and tech stack, and expand its reach to 100 towns over the next 18 months. In addition, the company will expand its presence in fashion and general merchandise, which have been added to the platform recently.
