Mumbai-based e-tailing platform Blubox has raised Rs 66 lakh ($100,000) in angel funding led by Ashish Jhalani, promoter of Etailingindia.com and founder of Indian School of eBusiness.
The company will use the money to fuel its expansion plans and upgrade its technological infrastructure.
Others who participated in the round are Amit Jhalani, CEO of MySolitaire.com and Supreet Singh, a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Altor.co.in.
“The acceptance rate from e-shopping portals and potential clients has been healthy. It has accelerated the roll-out of our plans and we are thinking of bigger things than we originally imagined,†said Harish Singla, co-founder and director of Blubox.
The firm connects brands/labels and e-commerce marketplaces through its end-to-end services ranging from product selection advisory, model photo-shoot and catalogue, order management to payment reconciliation.
“We are the first full service agency (FSA) for Flipkart, providing end-to-end services to its sellers and advising sellers to build their online brand,†said Singla.
An alumnus of Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Singla has over 15 years of experience in retail and channel sales. Before launching Blubox in 2012 with his wife Dipti, Singla worked with ICICI bank, HDFC Bank and CEAT Financial Services Ltd.
Dipti Singla, an MBA, has seven years experience with leading e-commerce portals such as eBay, Flipkart, Jabong, Myntra and HomeShop18.
The company claims that since its launch, it has managed to partner with 15 e-shopping portals, including five top online market places in the country.
“More than 150 brands are benefitting from our expertise and we have grown 10 times in the last 24 months,†said Singla.
“I believe this sort of a model will work in the long term in India. I can rely on Harish and Dipti who have the ability to build and then scale this business,†said Ashish Jhalani, who is also founder of ISeB which provides courses to graduates and young working professionals to make them employable in e-commerce companies.
An alumnus of New York University, Ashish Jhalani is on boards of FICCI’s retail committee and ASSOCHAM's FMCG panel. Earlier, he set up e-commerce venture MySolitaire.com in the US. However, later he handed over key responsibilities of the venture to his brother Amit Jhalani who is now its CEO.
Several players in the space have raised funds in the recent past. In April this year, Goa-based Browntape, which helps online merchants manage orders and inventory for e-commerce marketplaces, raised around $1 million from Seedfund and serial entrepreneur K Ganesh.
In January, Sellerworx, which helps small businesses sell on online marketplaces, received funding of around $1 million from Axilor Ventures, a seed incubator set up by Infosys co-founders SD Shibulal and Kris Gopalakrishnan.
