Social commerce startup GlowRoad raises funding led by Korean, Singaporean VC firms

Bengaluru-based social commerce startup GlowRoad has raised $11.5 million (Rs 80.3 crore) in a Series B+ funding round, led by Korea Investment Partners (KIP) and Singapore-based Vertex Ventures.

This April, the women-focused online portal had raised $10 million in its Series B funding round led by Chinese private equity firm CDH Investments. Previous investor Accel was also part of the funding.

Funds raised will be leveraged to increase hiring across functions in the startup, a company statement said.

Kunal Sinha, co-founder and CEO, GlowRoad, is eyeing profitability within a year.

The reseller network raised a cumulative $24.3 million in total funding since its foundation in 2017 by Kunal Sinha, Nilesh Padariya, Nitesh Pant, Shekhar Sahu and Sonal Verma.

GlowRoad app downloads recently scaled the five million mark. GlowRoad has reached customers in over 400 cities globally.

GlowRoad competes with the likes of Wooplr, Meesho and Shop101.

The social commerce network enables suppliers to sell their products to end-customers through resellers who can make use of their network of customers across India via social networking platforms such as Whatsapp and Facebook.

Recent developments:

• May 2019: Bangladesh-based B2B e-commerce platform Sindabad raised funding from social impact investor Aavishkaar.
• May 2019: Vdezi, an e-commerce solutions startup, partnered the UAE division of Amazon to enable sellers from India to reach the UAE market. 
• March 2019: Singapore-based e-commerce enabler Shopmatic merged with Octopus Retail Management Pte. Ltd.