Group buying start-up Citymall raises $75 mn in Series C funding round

It is the company's third fundraise in 18 months, bringing the total capital raised to $110 million.

Citymall has announced getting $75 million in Series C funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, said the group-buying platform where consumers get together for bulk purchases at discount pries.

This is the startup’s third fundraise in the last 18 months, bringing the total capital raised to $110 million. General Catalyst, Citius, Jungle Ventures, Arena Ventures, Elevation, Accel and Waterbridge also participated in the round. Jungle Ventures increased its investment from a Series B round, reinforcing the investor’s conviction in community e-commerce in India.

Citymall, which serial entrepreneurs Angad Kikla and Naisheel Verdhan founded in 2019, aims to take e-commerce to consumers in Indian towns. The company targets the 500 million new-to-internet users in these towns where traditional e-commerce has failed to penetrate, because direct-to-customer supply chains are not viable for low ticket size users living in remote towns and cities.

Through its network of community leaders who serve as both marketing partners and logistics partners for the company, Citymall provides 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.

The company has seen fast 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. Around 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 particular community leader, and the metric is growing.

“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,” said Angad Kikla, co-founder of Citymall.

Citymall will use the new funds to strengthen leadership and engineering teams, introduce new categories, expand supply chain, and expand its reach to 100 towns over the next 18 months.