Peer-to-peer (P2P) rural commerce startup Rozana has raised $2.5 Mn in a Pre-Series A round led by 3one4 Capital and Europe’s IEG-Investment Banking Group. The round also saw participation from angel investors Manisha Girotra, the CEO of Moelis and Surendra Kumar Jain, cofounder at Sequoia & Westbridge Capital.
The fresh capital will be utilized to improve the platform’s technological capabilities and increase Rozana’s footprint in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka. Currently, it is operating in Lucknow, Kanpur, Bengaluru, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Noida, New Delhi, Rae Bareli, Barabanki, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad.
Founded by Ankur Dahiya, Adwait Vikram Singh, Mukesh Christopher and Prithvi Pal Singh in 2021, Rozana’s social commerce platform looks at building exclusive partnerships with peers who wield community support (offline and online) to leverage the social network and the community for the expansion of the market.
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Rural and semi-urban areas are regions that are largely untapped by e-commerce and legacy brands alike. Rozana adopts a village by village strategy to drive product innovation, and demand and supply optimization for D2C brands.
It provides a full stack tech solution to enable micro-entrepreneurs into giving a wide array of offerings to their end consumers. These entrepreneurs can, meanwhile, make use of the platform to onboard new customers, put out their latest deals, and helps them in placing online orders.
Regarding their investment into the platform, Nitya Agarwal, VP at 3one4 Capital, added, “We are excited to partner with Rozana in their journey to revolutionize consumption beyond tier 1 in India. The team’s approach will serve as a feeder for discovery of consumer needs mapped at an unmatched scale and demographic depth.”
Rozana says it has managed to tap into over four lakh households in nine months alone, and is looking at a steady growth in the future.
Mihir Kapoor of IEG added, “Rozana has a model which is successfully bringing online commerce to a huge Indian population. Moreover it can also bring panchayat wise data and the power to create demand and supply through a scalable tech model. We are equally excited for sustainable growth for Rozana rising 30% month on month with healthy unit economics.”
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