Bangalore-based e-commerce enabler EasyEcom has raised $150,000 (about Rs 1 crore) in angel funding from top tech industry executives and early-stage investment funds.
The startup got the money from Ambarish Gupta, founder and CEO of Knowlarity Communications; Aneesh Reddy, CEO of Capillary Technologies; Bold Ventures, a fund now merged with 500 Startups; and US-based angel fund Vona Investments.
The company will use the funds to accelerate its customer acquisition efforts and scale its international business, a top company executive told VCCircle.
Owned and operated by Edgewise Technologies Pvt Ltd, EasyEcom helps brands manage their omni-channel business through analytics. The company targets mid to large retail enterprises in India and globally.
EasyEcom was founded in February 2014 by Punit Gupta, Jitesh Advani and Swati Jindal. Gupta and Advani are alumni of IIT Guwahati. Gupta, in his last role, led the technology team for a business-to-business hyperlocal startup named OnePath based in Atlanta, USA. Advani is a former Flipkart executive and was co-founder of TripEngineer, a travel marketplace. Jindal is a doctor by education, and was part of the core team at FabHealth, a healthcare marketplace and later headed the branding team at Nephrolife (acquired by DaVita USA).
“Brands love the analytics related to payouts and their margins, and that is our USP. This is a vast domain and we don’t want to build everything from scratch, and hence, we have a great partnership network including Zepo, KartRocket, Shopify, Capillary, Tally, Quickbooks, etc. The market is very favourable to us, especially with the GST rollout. Having a business model with over 70% gross margin, we should be hitting our break-even point within the next 12-15 months,†Gupta said.
EasyEcom’s omni-channel solution helps companies sell on multiple platforms through analytics. The solution offers ready integrations with major e-commerce platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon, web storefront providers such as Shopify, Zepo, and StoreHippo, and logistics providers such as Delhivery and Bluedart.
“EasyEcom has the potential to join the league of successful SaaS enterprise companies. The team has great command over their market and knows how to aggressively capture majority market share without blowing millions of dollars like many other startups are seen to be doing these days,†Knowlarity's CEO Gupta said.
Its flagship product EasySoft Plus helps companies sell products on all major marketplaces from one unified dashboard. It provides visibility for full inventory on all marketplaces in real-time with centralised sync, manages aggregated businesses for multiple vendor sub-accounts from one master account, and enables smart product listings. It's other services include historic reconciliation, invoice level audit, pending returns tracking and accounting.
The fundraise was syndicated by Bangalore-based investment banking firm DIA Capital Advisors from multiple investors. “This transaction validates the fact that there is a strong interest in omni-channel technology startups. It will facilitate attractive returns on the capital employed owing to the huge surge in demand for omni-channel technologies, proven markets, and differentiated offering,†Nishant Navin, founder and managing partner of DIA Capital Advisors, said.
The e-commerce enabler space has recently seen significant investor interest.
Bengaluru-based e-commerce solutions and consultancy firm Ace Turtle had raised an undisclosed sum from venture debt firm Innoven Capital in September this year. The company had earlier raised its Series A round from C31 Ventures, the venture investment arm of developer CapitaLand.
In August, Zepo Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs a do-it-yourself e-commerce platform for small businesses, had raised Rs 3.19 crore from a clutch of investors, including online funding platform LetsVenture, FreeCharge co-founder Kunal Shah and People Group founder Anupam Mittal.
In June, Singapore- and Bengaluru-based e-commerce enabler Shopmatic had raised $5.7 million in a Series A round from ACP Pte Ltd, a technology-focused venture capital firm, and Spring Seeds Capital Pte. Ltd, the investment subsidiary of SPRING Singapore.
In May, Singapore- and Pune-based Anchanto had raised an undisclosed amount from Luxasia Group, a Singapore-headquartered omni-channel retailer of beauty products.