Grocery and essentials focused social commerce startup DealShare, which became a unicorn, recently announced on February 17, 2022, that it has raised another $45 million as part of its Series E funding.
The round was led by a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), taking the company’s total funding to $393 million and valuation to $1.7 billion. The company will use the Series E funding for product innovation and technology for further expansion.
The Jaipur-headquartered startup operates a social commerce startup, which counts Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global among its investors. It serves customers in over 100 Indian cities and towns where the likes of Amazon and Flipkart have made little to no inroad.
DealShare caters to 500 million new-to-internet and value-seeking users. The company said it offers high-quality, low-priced essentials coupled with a gamified, fun-filled, and virality-driven shopping experience, making online shopping easy for first-time internet users.
DealShare is addressing an underserved market
The startup debuted on Whatsapp in India the day Walmart acquired Flipkart. It works with local brands and operates its ecosystem of in-house private labels to make its offering affordable to customers.
Three-year-old DealShare processes over 400,000 orders a day and is in a “touching distance of hitting $1 billion of gross revenue run rate.”
Vineet Rao, Co-founder and CEO of DealShare, said, “We are thrilled to welcome ADIA as a shareholder as part of our next phase of growth. The support that we have received from the investor community is very encouraging.
“It is a testimony of the confidence in DealShare’s vision, business model, and an acknowledgment of the growth we have been exhibiting. In just three years, we have scaled to over 10 million customers and over 100 cities across ten states,” added Rao.
DealShare has considerably reduced its customer acquisition and order fulfilling costs. On the platform, customers also negotiate prices with the system, replicating behavior that is a norm in physical shops in India.
“We will be utilizing the funds from our Series E round to strengthen our customer base and technology capabilities. We aim to democratize online shopping for Bharat users with unmatched service and experience by developing innovative products and tech solutions. This will be supported by building our teams across the country and hiring new tech talent at all levels,” said Vineet Rao.
International expansion plans
Founded by Rao, Medda, Sankar Bora, and Rajat Shikhar in 2018, DealShare provides a curated assortment at highly competitive prices and has built a community leader driven ultra-low-cost delivery mechanism
Hamad Shahwan Al Dhaheri, Executive Director of the Private Equities Department at ADIA, said, “India’s e-commerce ecosystem is developing rapidly, and DealShare is addressing an underserved and growing segment within it. This investment aligns with our approach of backing innovative businesses with differentiated business models to execute on their growth strategies.”
DealShare is also planning to expand to several international markets, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain.
Sourjyendu Medda, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer, DealShare, said, “We will be tripling our geographical presence, investing heavily on acquiring top-notch tech talent, and building a world-class supply chain infrastructure to aid this growth along with a continued focus on capital efficiency and path to profitability. We are targeting operational profitability by the end of this year.”
