DealShare, a social e-commerce startup, announced it has raised a $45 million funding from the wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) as part of a larger round, according to ETtech report.
Tiger Global, Dragoneer Investments Group, Kora Capital, Unilever Ventures, Alpha Wave Global also participated in the funding round.
Founded in 2018 by Rajat Shikhar, Sankar Bora, Sourjyendu Medda and Vineet Rao, DealShare sells daily essentials and targets the middle-income demographic through a community group buying model.
“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 Rao in a prepared statement.
“I think we had a very different thesis to social commerce,” said Medda. “We always believed social commerce will only work if it is deployed in the grocery space. For social commerce to work we need virality in the mass consumers. That will only happen when the deals are relevant to the larger population.”
“The choices in electronics and fashion are large for virality to be created,” he said. “While everyone (other social commerce players) is getting into direct commerce we are the only sizeable social commerce player in the country.”
“These big differentiators we will continue to retain,” said Medda. “We are possibly the fastest growing ecommerce company. We are already close to a $1 billion revenue run rate now. At the same time, we burn very little. We are very close to operational profitability.”
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