Gujarat-based community group buying platform Frendy has raised a pre–Series A funding of Rs 10 crore from Pavitar Singh (Chief Technology Officer- Sprinklr), Abhishek Khurana (SVP product engineering, Sprinklr) and the Desai family office (investors in Infibeam, Licious, PetPooja, PeeSafe), the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
The company said that it plans to utilise the funds primarily for growth, expanding its team and meeting working capital needs.
The startup is in the final stage of discussions with several investors to close its series A round of Rs 30 crore in the next few months, it added.
Frendy, operated by Areli Commerce Pvt Ltd, was founded in 2019 by Sameer Gandotra, whose involvement in Nebula - a social commerce-based affordable housing developer, led to the inception of Frendy. The platform provides discounts on groceries and other daily needs-related items to tier two- tier six towns through the neighbourhood homepreneurs.
According to the statement, it operates in more than 20 tier two -tier six towns of Gujarat and has over 3000 products on its platform. It claims to be growing 30% every month and is set to reach an accounting rate of return (ARR) of Rs 300 crore in the next financial year. Currently, it has 75 employees across tech, community building and operations. The company said that it plans to scale in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and a few other states in eastern India.
In a similar space, earlier this month, Bzaar, a global business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce marketplace, raised $4 million (Rs 30 crore) in its seed funding round led by Canaan Partners.
In October, Mpaani Solutions Pvt Ltd, which runs LoveLocal, a hyper-local ecommerce platform raised $18 million (Rs 143 crore) in a pre-Series B financing round led by Vulcan Capital.