The newest Unicorn DealShare on Saturday announcing that it has raised $165 million in the first close of its Series E round. The funding enabled the company to enter the billion-dollar club after its valuation rose to over $1.6 billion.
Founded in Jaipur in September 2018 by Vineet Rao, Sourjyendu Medda, Sankar Bora, and Rajat Shikhar, three-year-old startup DealShare uses a community-driven approach to offer high-quality, low-priced essentials for mass consumers at competitive prices, especially in Tier II and III cities.
Bengaluru based startup will use the funding to “invest in technology and data science, and a ten-fold expansion in its logistics infrastructure to increase geographic reach,” DealShare said in a release. It will also establish a sizable offline store franchise network.
Unicorn Dealshare to invest $165 million in acquiring marquee brands
Vineet Rao, Founder and CEO, DealShare, explains, “We will be utilising the proceeds from the round to invest heavily into technology, improving the supply chain, and expanding our footprint throughout the country. We will also invest in acquiring best-in-class technologies and marquee brands that are focused on the mass market.”
According to a press release, Dealshare expects to hit the $1 billion mark in revenue in the near term.
He added, “DealShare is one of the fastest-growing ecommerce companies in India. Our revenue and customer base have grown 13 times in the last year with improving profitability.”
Vineet said the startup has a customer base of over 10 million and is present in over 100 cities across 10 states.
Sourjyendu Medda, Chief Business Officer, DealShare, said, “We are witnessing very high growth in our business. This year, we will be expanding our presence to well over 200 cities across 20 states and are setting an audacious goal to increase our annual revenue run rate to $3 billion while becoming operationally profitable. We also aim to add close to 50 million new consumers in the next 12 months.”
The startup operates over 100 warehouses and plans to expand its warehousing from two million square feet today to 20 million square feet over the next 12 months.
“DealShare delivers a compelling value proposition to its customers, who are value-conscious middle Indians in Tier II and III cities, who crave local/regional products,” said Navroz D. Udwadia, Co-founder and Partner, Alpha Wave Global.
A new unicorn is joining the club, with DealShare on Saturday announcing that it has raised $165 million in the first close of its Series E round from Dragoneer Investments Group, Kora Capital, and Unilever Ventures. Existing investors Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global (Falcon Edge) also participated in the round.
